Time sped slowly between looking at my watch to know the tide change, and dozing as I lay in the cabin—the dingey being of course astern; until in the middle of the night, lapsing through many dreams, I had glided into that delicious state when you dream that you are dreaming. On a sudden, and without any seeming cause, I felt perfectly awake, and yet in a sort of trance, and lying still a time, seeking what could possibly have awakened me thus. Then there came through the dark a peal of thunder, long, and loud, and glorious.
How changed the scene to look upon! No light to be seen from the Owers now, but a flash from above and then darkness, and soon a grand rolling of the same majestic, deep-toned roar.
Now I must prepare for wind. On with the life-belt, close the hatches, loose the mainsail, and double reef it, and reef the jib. Off with the mizen and set the storm-sail, and now haul up the anchor while yet there is time; and there was scarcely time before a rattling breeze got up, and waves rose too, and rain came down as we sailed off south to the open sea for room. Sea room is the sailor’s want: the land is what he fears more than the water.
We were soon fast spinning along, and the breeze brushed all the haze away, but the night was very dark, and the rain made it hard to see. Now and then the thunder swallowed all other sounds, as the wild cries in the desert are silenced by the lion’s roar.
Sometimes there was an arch shining above as the flashes leaped across the upper clouds, and then a sharp upright prong of forked lightning darted straight down between, while rain was driven along by the wind, and salt foam dashed up from the waves. It seemed like an earthly version of that heavenly vision which was beheld in Patmos by the beloved John:—“And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings.” [244]
How well our English word “thunder” suits the meaning in its sound, far better than tonnerre or tonitru!
In the dark, a cutter dashed by me, crossing the yawl’s bows, just as the lightning played on us both. It had no ship-light up, shameful to say. I shouted out, “Going south?” and they answered, “Yes; come along off that shore.”
From the bit of chart here copied (covering only a few miles) it will be understood what kind of shore we had to avoid. There was quite water enough for our shallow craft, but it was the twisting of currents and tides that made the danger here.
The breeze now turned west, then south, and every other way, and it was exceedingly perplexing to know at once what to do in each case, especially as the waves became short and snappish under this pressure from different sides, and yet my compass quietly pointed right, with a soft radiance shining from it, and my mast-light in a brighter glow gleamed from behind me [246] on the white crest of the waves.