CHAPTER TWELVE.
THE TAIL-END OF A HURRICANE.
Immediately the sudden blast of wind struck the ship, the meteor-like ball of fire, which had previously hovered about our rigging lighting up the dense gloom of the atmosphere, suddenly disappeared, leaving us for a moment in darkness; but this was only for a brief spell, as the gale-- at the same time that it forced us to cut and run before its tremendous impulse, scudding away to the north-west at right angles to what should have been our proper course, which was to the northwards and eastwards-- dispelled in a very short time the overhanging mass of vapour that shrouded the sky.

The clouds cleared away, as if by magic, disclosing the blue vault of heaven open above us for the stars to shine down at their will; while the moon presently coming out, the ocean was displayed in all its vastness to the extreme limits of the horizon.
But, what a different scene was now presented to our gaze to that which we had looked upon but an hour agone! Then, the sea, with the exception of a faint throbbing swell as if proceeding from the deep breathing of Neptune below the surface, seeming to rise and fall with rhythmical regularity, was calm and still, unbroken by even the tiniest ripple; now, as far as the eye could reach, it was all life and motion, the billows leaping up and tossing their heads, crowned with wreaths of curling spray and growing larger and larger each moment in volume as they dashed onward madly before the wind.
The ocean coursers seemed, indeed, like a pack of hounds pursuing the ship, gnashing their teeth in surf as they missed their prey, and then gathering themselves up again together to renew the chase, rolling against each other, boiling in eddies, clashing, dashing, swelling, breaking in sheets of foam, and presenting one seething mass of moving waters.
Nothing is so wonderful as this sudden getting up of the sea after a spell of calm weather.
It is like the sudden uprising of a giant in his wrath--one moment it is sleeping quietly, the next far and wide it is in a state of mad commotion, threatening destruction to those who brave the perils of the deep.
The _Josephine_ sped bravely before the gale, unmindful of the stormy billows blustering after her, her speed enabling her easily as yet to outstrip the rollers, although she was only scudding under close-reefed topsails.

She was not too heavily laden; and, being a good sea-boat, she rose easily on the lift of the waves, almost skimming the surface like one of Mother Carey's chickens, and jumping, as it were, from billow to billow as the wind urged her onward.
"If we keep on long like this," observed Mr Marline grimly to the captain, "we'll soon lose all our easting, and have to begin our voyage over again!" "Never mind that," cheerfully answered Captain Miles.

"The gale will only drive us into the Gulf Stream at the worst; and then, we'll have the assistance of the easterly current there in making our way home, when we have the chance of bearing up on our course again.

We won't lose much in the end, you'll see." "All right, we'll see," said Mr Marline.