The breeze which was blowing fresh, and had not as yet become a gale (to us at least), veered north-westerly; so we shook the reefs out of our topsails and trimmed sharp by the wind.
"Luff, luff—keep your luff—keep her to," were the incessant orders of Weston; and the Eugenie flew through the water like a race-horse; held by the powerful hands of Antonio, she never yawed an inch; and by especial Providence she got to windward of that dreadful phenomenon, which passed us, cloud and all, about six miles astern, when as it changed color, from grayish green to white, it presented a scene so sublime and terrible, that "the boldest held his breath for a time;" and Antonio, who was blanched white with terror, though he had frequently seen such spouts in these, his native seas, assured me, with chattering teeth, that he had never beheld one of such magnitude; and it was long before he could be certain of our safety, and ceased to mutter,—
"O mala ventura—mala ventura!" (literally, bad luck.)
From white, the water-spout became dusky purple, when a gleam of the setting sun fell on it, and the waves at its base glittered in all the colors of the rainbow.
"Thank heaven! that is past," said Weston.
"Ay, sir," said old Roberts, the man-o'-war's man, "it is enough to make one's hair stand on end for a week."
"Had we been twenty minutes' sail astern, we could not have escaped it!" said Hislop; "but we have handled the brig beautifully. That ugly Spaniard at the wheel was worth his weight in gold just now!"
For nearly an hour the sea was greatly agitated; but as the Eugenie, still braced sharp to the wind, flew from one long roller to another, we rapidly got into smooth water. The barometer rose quickly; the vapors dispersed; and when the setting sun gave us a parting smile from the far horizon, the storm-cloud and its water-spout had disappeared together, or melted away in the distant sea.
The little eddies of wind, which on a fine summer morning may be seen whirling up the dust and dry leaves in circles on a road, are exactly on the same principle as those mighty phenomena which become tornadoes, cyclones, and water-spouts, when they reach the ocean, where they may easily dismast and perhaps sink the largest line-of-battle ship.
Those spouts rise from the sea exactly like the moving pillars of sand, which the whirlwinds sweep from the hot and arid deserts of Africa and Arabia.