148 
STORMY PETREL. 
scowls and blackens more angrily, and low clouds whirl and 
wheel about in uncertain eddies, all betokening a savage burst 
of the outpoured fury of the elements; but while other sea¬ 
birds scuttle off to seek shelter, if any may be found, the 
Petrel still stays, and awaits the utmost violence of the storm. 
In the offing there rises up the weather-beaten hull of some 
doomed ship, ‘lean, rent, and beggared,’ which in vain struggles 
and strains to keep of the fatal lee-shore. She drifts nearer 
and nearer; you would see at once that her hour has come, 
and that no human power can save her. Now the darkness 
lowers still deeper, the mournful sighings of the air tell of the 
awaking of the winds from their snatched and fitful shimber, 
and warn that they will soon be sweeping on again with re¬ 
doubled force, like a troop of gaunt and famished wolves greedy 
of their certain prey. The black hull looms larger and larger 
as the tempest-tossed vessel rises on the high wild seas outside, 
and the only barriers between her and the rocky cliffs, half¬ 
way up which the billows are breaking, and recoiling again 
in boiling surf, are the sunken rocks, ‘over which stupendous 
breakers, lashed into fury by the angry gusts, run riot, 
mingling the hissing of their seething waves with the furious 
ravings of the blast.’ 
It is as nature has foretold, and the signs of the vast 
power of the air, which she has ushered in with many sublime 
portents, are quickly fulfilled. The sky above assumes a 
fierce and fiery appearance, and to windward a huge bank of 
black cloud rises up and up from the distance, and, as it 
comes on nearer and nearer, the ‘mighty and strong wind,’ in 
the language of Scripture, is driven, as it were, out of its 
dark depths to carry all irresistibly before it. With every 
fresh burst of the tempest a harsh screaming sound, as the 
howl of a legion of evil spirits let loose and borne on its 
ominous wings, warns of the mischief too late, the cries of 
the uncaged wind gather strength and wax louder and louder, 
as if never to be calmed again. Now, for an instant, the 
vivid lightning lightens up the scene, and reveals the darkness 
around, above, and below, to leave all still more awful than 
before; and following it, ‘Heaven’s artillery,’ the thunder-clap, 
rolls over and echoes away among the clouds, peal upon peal 
and crash upon crash. And, last, night comes on with its 
gloomy grandeur, and the blackness of the black depth below 
is taken into the blackness that comes down upon it—all is 
black. The sea closes over the fated ship, and the wail of 
