“Ay, ay,” I answered drowsily; “what is it, Mr Forbes?”
“Sorry to disturb you, sir,” was the reply, “but there seems to be something brewing away down there to the south’ard and west’ard. It’s as black as a wolf’s mouth thereaway; and there is a nasty cross swell getting up, as you may feel for yourself, sir.”
“All right,” I returned, rolling reluctantly out of my berth; “I will be on deck in a minute.”
I was as good as my word; and upon popping my head outside the companion I came to the conclusion that I had been called none too soon. There was absolutely not a breath of air stirring save that created by the heavy flapping of the canvas as the ship rolled, with a quick, uneasy motion, almost gunwale-to; and upon interrogating the helmsman I learned that he had lost all command over the vessel for fully an hour. It was, as the second mate had said, intensely dark down in the south-western quarter; and a very brief observation sufficed to demonstrate that the pall of cloud which hid the heavens in that direction was slowly but steadily spreading toward the zenith, star after star being blotted out even as I watched them. The air, too, was close and oppressive as the breath of an oven; while the surface of the sea was unusually agitated, the run seeming to come from all points of the compass at once, and to meet under the ship, causing her to “wallow” so awkwardly that the water tumbled in over her rail in all directions, now forward, now aft, and anon in the waist, and on either side with the utmost impartiality. The water was everywhere of an inky blackness, save along the ship’s bends and where she dipped it in over her rail. This disturbed water looked, at a short distance, as though it had been diluted with milk; but, examined closely, it was found to glow with a faint fire, like the glimmer of summer lightning, with small star-like points of stronger light thickly scattered through it. The most perfect silence reigned outside the ship, but on board there was quite a small Babel of sound storming about us; the creaking of yard-parrels and trusses aloft, mingled with the loud flap of the canvas to the roll of the ship, the “cheep” of block-sheaves, the sharp “slatting” of suddenly tautened gear, and the pattering of reef-points; while on deck there was the monotonous swish of water washing athwart the planks from side to side, with the choking gurgle of the water spouting up through the scuppers, and the heavy splashing sound of the brine as it poured in over the bulwarks; the whole set to a dismal accompaniment of creaking timbers, rattling doors, and breaking crockery below.
“How long has the weather been like this, Mr Forbes?” I asked, as my subordinate stood a few paces apart from me, waiting to hear what I had to say about the aspect of things in general.
“Well, sir,” he replied, “that is not a very easy question to answer. It has been gathering ever since about half an hour after you went below; but the change has been going on so imperceptibly that it scarcely forced itself upon my attention until just before—Ah! did you hear that, sir?”
A low, faint, weird, moaning sound, scarcely perceptible, had floated to the ship, causing the mate to interrupt himself suddenly; and at the same moment a light, evanescent puff of hot air seemed to sweep past us.
“Yes,” said I, “I both heard and felt it. We are going to have a heavy squall, if nothing worse, out of that blackness yonder. Turn the hands up at once, and let them go to work to strip the ship without loss of time. Get in all your light flying kites first of all, and stow them snugly; then brail in your mizzen and stow it; let run your staysail halliards, and haul up your courses. We will leave nothing spread but the two topsails and the fore-topmast-staysail; then, let what will come, we shall be prepared for it.”
Forbes hurried away to execute this order, and next moment there came the sounds of a most unmerciful pounding on the forecastle-head with a handspike, and the accompanying cry of—
“Hillo there, sleepers; tumble up. All hands shorten sail! Hurry up, my bullies, or we shall have the squall upon us before we are ready for it.”