They found the aspect of the sky more gloomy than ever; the clouds had formed themselves into heavier masses, and donned a deeper tinge of black than they had worn during the forenoon, and they were displaying a still greater degree of activity. Tongues of cloud were still darting out and back again, but they seemed no nearer to the formation of waterspouts than during the morning; and Leslie began to think that, perhaps, for once in a way he was going to prove a false prophet. Meanwhile, although during the whole of the morning and up to that moment, there had not been the faintest breath of wind, the two craft—the barque and the brig—had closed on each other to within a distance of some three miles, in the mysterious manner characteristic of craft becalmed within sight of each other. The barque, Leslie noticed, had followed his own example, and stripped to precisely the same canvas as that exposed by the brig.
The conditions were not conducive to animated conversation; and judging from Miss Trevor’s brief replies to his remarks, that she would prefer to be left to her own thoughts for awhile, he presently left her leaning over the rail gazing at the barque—which the swing of the brig had now brought abeam—and seating himself upon the short bench alongside the companion, proceeded to fill a pipe. He was lighting it with an ordinary match, the unshielded flame of which burned as steadily as though he had been in a hermetically scaled room, when Miss Trevor suddenly cried out—
“Oh, look, Mr Leslie, look! Surely there is one of your waterspouts at last!”
Leslie sprang to her side and looked in the direction toward which she pointed, where, at a distance of some eight miles away, he beheld a fully formed waterspout moving very slowly and majestically in a southerly direction.
“Yes,” he agreed, “that is a real, genuine waterspout, and no mistake. But it is too far off for you to see it to advantage. Did you actually behold it come into existence?”
“No,” she answered; “I was watching the ship yonder, and only caught sight of it accidentally, after it had become fully formed. I should really like to witness the genesis of a waterspout.”
“Then keep your eye on that cloud,” he recommended her, pointing to an especially black and heavy one that hung a few degrees from the zenith and apparently about half a mile astern of the barque. “If I am not greatly mistaken it is about to develop a very fine specimen in a few minutes. Do you note that black tongue that is slowly stretching down from it? Although it lengthens and shortens you will observe that it does not shrink back altogether into the cloud; on the contrary, every time that it lengthens it becomes perceptibly longer than it was before; and observe how steadily its root—where it joins the cloud—is swelling. Now watch, see how it continually stretches down, further and further towards the water. Ah, and do you see that little mound forming in the sea immediately beneath it? See how the water heaps itself up, as though striving to reach up and join the down-stretching tongue of cloud. Ah! there the two unite and you have the perfect waterspout. And a very noble example of its kind it is. They will be having a splendid view of it from yonder barque, for, see, it is moving in her direction, and is about to pass close to her, rather too close to be altogether pleasant, unless my eyes deceive me!”
He sprang to the companion, and seizing the telescope, applied it to his eye.
“Why,” he exclaimed excitedly, after a moment or two, with his eye still glued to the instrument, “what are they about aboard that barque? Why don’t they fire at the thing and break it? It will be upon them in another moment, to a dead certainty, unless it changes its course! No—yes—yes, it is going to hit her! Heavens! look at that!”
And as he stood there gazing he saw that vast column of water sweep steadily down upon and over the barque, completely hiding her from view for a moment. Then it suddenly wavered in the middle and broke, collapsing with a tremendous splash and commotion of the sea, the sound of which came drifting down to the brig with startling distinctness some ten or twelve seconds later. And there, in the very midst of the tumbling circle of foaming whiteness left by the vanished waterspout there floated the barque, no longer trim and all ataunto as she had shown a few seconds before, but a dismasted, mangled wreck, with bulwarks gone, boats swept from her davits, all three masts snapped short off at the level of the deck and lying alongside with all attached, a mere tangled mass of wreckage still fast to the hull by the standing and running rigging.