At 1 a.m. the sounding-line was not all hauled in. Ten thousand feet remained out, which would take several more hours to bring in. According to the commander's orders the fires had been lighted, and the pressure was going up already. The Susquehanna might have started at once.
At that very moment—it was 1.17 a.m.—Lieutenant Bronsfield was about to leave his watch to turn in when his attention was attracted by a distant and quite unexpected hissing sound.
His comrades and he at first thought that the hissing came from an escape of steam, but upon lifting up his head he found that it was high up in the air.
They had not time to question each other before the hissing became of frightful intensity, and suddenly to their dazzled eyes appeared an enormous bolis, inflamed by the rapidity of its course, by its friction against the atmospheric strata.
This ignited mass grew huger as it came nearer, and fell with the noise of thunder upon the bowsprit of the corvette, which it smashed off close to the stem, and vanished in the waves.
A few feet nearer and the Susquehanna would have gone down with all on board.
At that moment Captain Blomsberry appeared half-clothed, and rushing in the forecastle, where his officers had preceded him—
"With your permission, gentlemen, what has happened?" he asked.
And the midshipman, making himself the mouthpiece of them all, cried out—
"Commander, it is 'they' come back again."