RUNNING BEFORE THE WIND. 
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calm lasted several hours, the sea strangely enough 
appeared to become all the rougher, tossing and tumbling 
restlessly up and down —(not over and over as in a 
gale)—like a sick man on a fever bed; the impulse to 
the waves seeming to proceed from all four quarters of 
the world at once. Then—like jurymen with a verdict 
of death upon their lips—the heavy, ominous clouds 
slowly passed into the North-West. 
A dead stillness followed—a breathless pause— 
until—at some mysterious signal, the solemn voice of 
the storm hurtled over the deep. Luckily we were 
quite ready for it; the gale came from the right quarter, 
and the fiercer it blew the better. For the next three 
days and three nights it was a scurry over the sea such 
as I never had before; nine or ten knots an hour was 
the very least we ever went, and 240 miles was the 
average distance we made every four-and-twenty 
hours. 
Anything grander and more exciting than the sight 
of the sea under these circumstances—you cannot 
imagine. The vessel herself remains very steady; when 
you are below you scarcely know you are not in port. 
But on raising your head above the companion, the 
