“Rogers,” he said, “go and tell the commander that the weather is getting much worse.”
“Be quick about it, too,” exclaimed Green; “there is no time to lose.”
Commander Rawson was quickly on deck. After taking a rapid glance round, he shouted out, “All hands shorten sail.”
The watch below came tumbling up on deck. The topsails were lowered, and the topmen, like bees, swiftly swarmed aloft, laying out on the yardarms.
“Hold on by your teeth and eyelids, Billy,” said Tom to his old friend Billy Blueblazes, as he sprang up to his station in the main-top. The canvas was speedily reduced to closely-reefed fore and main-topsails and fore-staysail. It was hard work to hold on, for the ship rolled even more violently than before. The wind, however, did not come as soon as was expected, but it was impossible to say at what moment it might strike her. That it would come with no ordinary strength, and without further warning, there was every reason to believe.
The crew, having performed their task, were called down on deck. There was something in the appearance of the sea and sky, and the heaviness of the atmosphere, which made even the toughest old seaman feel an extraordinary depression of spirits, though he might not have suspected the cause.
“Faith! I’m sorry I did not remain quietly in my cot,” said Desmond; “it seems to me as if the world were coming to an end. I should not be surprised to see flames spouting up out of the sea. It looks as if some big fires were burning away under it.”
“Don’t you ken, Gerald, that the water would be putting the fire out,” observed Archie; “though from the appearance of some of those islands there has been fire enough below them at one time or other. They have all been raised up out of the ocean by volcanic agency.”
“I am not disposed to dispute the truth of your remark,” said Desmond; “I only wish the sea would get quiet, and let us glide comfortably over it, instead of kicking up such a disturbance.”
While the midshipmen were speaking, the ship had continued her uneasy course, slowly rising to the summit of a huge billow and then gliding down into the deep trough.