56 The Mysterious Tailor : [Juy, 
lazy flapping to and fro of the undecided sail, and mark the descending 
shadows as momently they vary their aspects, changing, first from a dull 
grey to a darker brown, thence deepening into a more sombre leaden 
tint, till at last one uniform pall of frightful raven blackness drops down 
upon the horizon, blotting out earth, sea, and sky. Towards night, the 
weather, which had hitherto proved so serene, began to fluctuate; the 
wind shifted, and gradually a heavy swell came rolling in from the north- 
east towards us. Asthe hour advanced, a storm seemed advancing with 
it: the sea-gull flew lower, and described narrower circles round our 
vessel; the gale rose and fell, the porpoises—those sea-aldermen— 
frolicked about in shoals ; and a hundred other symptoms appeared, the 
least of which was fully sufficient to certify the coming on of a tre- 
mendous hurricane. Our Captain, however—a bronzed, pinched-up little 
fellow, whom a series of north-westers seemed to have dried to a 
mummy—put a good face on the matter, and our mate whistled bluffly, 
though I could not help fancying that his whistle had something forced 
about it. As for the passengers, luckily they were for the most part ill ; 
but those who, like myself, could still keep the deck, seemed labouring 
with awkward anticipations. Among them was a smart, dapper Under- 
taker from Tooley-street, whose chief dread arose from an apprehension 
of being entombed uncoffined in the sea. He could not conceive the 
idea of being disposed of so summarily, without mutes or mourners, 
black gloves, or crape hat-bands: it disturbed his sense of “ the fitness 
of things,” and was worse, he said, than being buried in a cross-road. 
There was a lady too—evidently a citizen’s wife—who just as an 
enormous wave was sweeping heavily across the deck, rejected the 
proffered help of a stranger who stood near her, because she had not 
been properly introduced to him. Alas, for human nature! vain, per~ 
plexing, and inconsistent to the last. ; 
We had by this time been tossing about upwards of four hours, yet 
despite the storm, which increased every moment in energy, our vessel 
bore up well, labouring and pitching frightfully to be sure, but as yet 
uninjured in sail, mast, or hull. As for her course, it was—so the mate 
assured me—a moral impossible to say which way we were bound, 
whether for a trip to Spain, Holland, or Van Dieman’s Land ; it might 
be one, it might be t’other.” Scarcely had he uttered these words, when’ 
a Jong rolling sea came sweeping on in hungry grandeur towards us, and 
at one rush tore open the ship’s gun-wale, which now, completely at 
the mercy of the wave, went staggering, drunken and blindfold, through 
the surge. From this fatal moment the sailors were kept constantly at 
the pumps, although so instantaneous was the rush of water into the hold, 
that they did little or no good: there seemed, in fact, not the ghost of a 
chance left us; even the mate had ceased whistling, and the Captain’s 
eaths began to assume the nature of a compromise between penitence 
and hardihood. The reader may here wish to know, if at least my 
narrative have so far interested him, how I bore myself on this trying 
occasion. Strange to say, instead of apprehension, I experienéed the 
intensest excitement. The sense of danger was swallowed up in a vivid’ 
relish of the poetry with which the elements of tempest are replete. I 
gazed up towards the clouds, between which a red moon now and then’ 
looked out, with awe, certainly not dread ; they resembled, methought, 
things of meaning, instinct with life and consciousness ; spirits of another® 
world, whose voice was the wind howling its malignant music triumph- 
