Dodd looked, and shook his head. The sun
was red: but the wrong red: an angry red:
and, as he dipped into the wave, discharged a
lurid coppery hue that rushed in a moment
like an embodied menace over the entire heavens.
The wind ceased altogether: and in the middle
of an unnatural and suspicious calm the glass
went down, down, down.

The moon rose: and instantly all eyes were
bent on her with suspicion; for in this latitude
the hurricanes generally come at the full moon.
She was tolerably clear, however; but a light
scud sailing across her disc showed there was
wind in the upper regions.

The glass fell lower than Dodd had ever
seen it.

He trusted to science; barred the lee-ports,
and had the dead lights put into the stern
cabin and secured: then turned in for an hour's
sleep.

Science proved a prophet. Just at seven
bells, in one moment, like a thunderbolt from the
sky, a heavy squall struck the ship; and laid her
almost on her beam ends. Under a less careful
captain her lee-ports would have been open,
and she would have gone to the bottom like a
bullet.

"Ease the main sheet!" cried Sharpe, hastily,
to a hand he had placed there on purpose: the
man, in his hurry, took too many turns off the
cleet, the strain overpowered him, he let go, and
there was the sail flapping like thunder, and the
sheet lashing everything in the most dangerous
way. Dodd was on deck in a moment. "Up
mainsel! Get hold of the clue garnets, bunt-lines,
and leech-lines; run them up!—Now then,
over to wind'ard! Let go the main-bowling!—
Keep to the run, men!—Belay!"

And so the sail was saved.

"Folkstle, there!"

"Sir!"

"Hands up: furl sails!"

"Ay, ay, sir."

(Pipe.) "All hands furl sail, ahoy!"

Up tumbled the crew, went cheerily to work,
and by three bells in the middle watch, had
furled the few remaining sails, and treble reefed
the main topsail: under this last the ship lay to,
with her head as near the wind as they could
bring it, and so the voyage was suspended.

A heavy sea got up under a scourging wind
that rose and rose, till the Agra, under the
pressure of that single sail treble reefed, heeled
over so as to dip her lee channels. This went on
till the waves rolled so high, and the squalls
were so bitter, that sheets of water were actually
torn off their crests and launched incessantly on
deck, not only drenching Dodd and his officers,
which they did not mind, but threatening to flood
the ship.

Dodd battened down the hatches, and stopped
that game.

Then came a danger no skill could avert: the
ship lurched so rapidly that the seams of her
works opened and shut: she also heeled over so
violently now, as not merely to dip, but bury, her
lower deck port-pendants: and so a good deal of
water found ingress through the windage. Then
Dodd set a gang to the pumps: for he said:
"We can hardly hope to weather this out without
shipping a sea: and I won't have water coming
in upon water."

And now the wind, raging and roaring like
discharges of artillery, and not like wind as
known in our seas, seemed to have put out all
the lights of heaven. The sky was inky black,
and quite close to their heads: and the wind still
increasing, the vessel came down to her extreme
bearings, and it was plain she would soon be on
her beam ends. Sharpe and Dodd met, and holding
on by the life-lines, applied their speaking
trumpets tight to each other's ears; and even,
then they had to bawl.

"She can't carry a rag much longer."

"No, sir; not half an hour."

"Can we furl that main taupsle?"

Sharpe shook his head. "The first moment we
start a sheet, the sail will whip the mast out of
her."

"You are right. Well then, I'll cut it away."

"Volunteers, sir?"

"Ay, twelve: no more. Send them to my
cabin."

Sharpe's difficulty was to keep the men back,
so eager were the fine fellows to risk their lives.
However, he brought twelve to the cabin, headed
by Mr. Grey, who had a right, as captain of the
watch, to go with them; on which right he
insisted in spite of Dodd's earnest request that he
would forego it. When Dodd saw his resolution,
he dropped the friend, and resumed the
captain: and spoke to them through a trumpet;
the first time he had ever used one in a cabin
or seen one used.

"Mr. Grey, and men, going aloft to save the
mainmast, by cutting the sail away."

"Ay, ay, sir!"

"Service of danger, great danger!"

"Hurrah!"

"But great dangers can be made smaller by
working the right way. Attend! Lay out all
on the yard, and take your time from one; man
at the lee yard arm: don't know who that will
be; but one of the smartest men in the ship.
Order to him is: hold his knife hand well up;
rest to see! and then in knives altogether:
mind and cut from you, and below the reef
band; and then I hope to see all come down
alive."

Mr. Grey and his twelve men left the cabin:
and hey! for the main top. The men let the
officer lead them as far as Jacob's ladder, and
then hurrah for the lee yard arm! That was
where all wanted to be, and but one could be:
Grey was as anxious as the rest: but officers of
his rank seldom go aloft, and soon fall out of
their catlike habits. He had done about six
ratlines, when instead of going hand over head,
he spread his arms to seize a shroud on each
side of him: by this he weakened his leverage,