In the Gulf Stream, thus late in June, hailstones were pelting the _Spray_, and lightning was pouring down from the clouds, not in flashes alone, but in almost continuous streams.

By slants, however, day and night I worked the sloop in toward the coast, where, on the 25th of June, off Fire Island, she fell into the tornado which, an hour earlier, had swept over New York city with lightning that wrecked buildings and sent trees flying about in splinters; even ships at docks had parted their moorings and smashed into other ships, doing great damage.

It was the climax storm of the voyage, but I saw the unmistakable character of it in time to have all snug aboard and receive it under bare poles.

Even so, the sloop shivered when it struck her, and she heeled over unwillingly on her beam ends; but rounding to, with a sea-anchor ahead, she righted and faced out the storm.

In the midst of the gale I could do no more than look on, for what is a man in a storm like this?
I had seen one electric storm on the voyage, off the coast of Madagascar, but it was unlike this one.