Chapter 16 - Page 2

intelligence
correspondent to the degree of skill he might have acquired, during his
particular period of service, on that treacherous element which was now
his home.

The dim tracery of the stranger's form had been swallowed by the flood of
misty light, which, by this time, rolled along the sea like drifting
vapour, semi-pellucid, preternatural, and seemingly tangible. The ocean
itself appeared admonished that a quick and violent change was nigh. The
waves had ceased to break in their former foaming and brilliant crests,
but black masses of the water were seen lifting their surly summits
against the eastern horizon, no longer relieved by their scintillating
brightness, or shedding their own peculiar and lucid atmosphere around
them. The breeze which had been so fresh, and which had even blown, at
times, with a force that nearly amounted to a little gale, was lulling and
becoming uncertain, as though awed by the more violent power that was
gathering along the borders of the sea, in the direction of the
neighbouring continent. Each moment, the eastern puffs of air lost their
strength, and became more and more feeble, until, in an incredibly short
period, the heavy sails were heard flapping against the masts--a frightful
and ominous calm succeeding. At this instant, a glancing, flashing gleam
lighted the fearful obscurity of the ocean; and a roar, like that of a
sudden burst of thunder, bellowed along the waters. The seamen turned
their startled looks on each other, and stood stupid, as though a warning
had been given, from the heavens themselves, of what was to follow. But
their calm and more sagacious Commander put a different construction on
the signal. His lip curled, in high professional pride, and his mouth
moved rapidly while he muttered to himself, with a species of scorn,--

"Does he think we sleep? Ay, he has got it himself and would open our eyes
to what is coming! What does he imagine we have been about, since the
middle watch was set?"

Then, Wilder made a swift turn or two on the quarter-deck, never ceasing
to bend his quick glances from one quarter of the heavens to another; from
the black and lulling water on which his vessel was rolling, to the sails;
and from his silent and profoundly expectant crew, to the dim lines of
spars that were waving above his head, like so many pencils tracing their
curvilinear and wanton images over the murky volumes of the superincumbent
clouds.

"Lay the after-yards square!" he said, in a voice which was heard by every
man on deck, though his words were apparently spoken but little above his
breath. Even the creaking of the blocks, as the spars came slowly and
heavily round to the indicated position, contributed to the imposing