"She's all right now, though!" He had spoken too quickly, however, "counting his chickens before they were hatched," according to the old proverb; for, no sooner had he got out the words than for one single instant the gale lulled, coming to a dead stand-still, and the very next moment it began to blow from the exactly opposite direction--the storm proceeding now from the north-west quadrant instead of the south-east, and the headquarters of our fresh assailant being the thick bank of black clouds we had noticed in front of our previous position before wearing ship low down on the horizon.
We had evidently only got round in the very nick of time.
Otherwise, there is little doubt that the _Josephine_, meeting the wind from this new quarter full butt, would have been taken aback.

Now, from her change of position it struck her aft, making her scud again before it as she had previously done--strangely enough causing her to retrace the very same course she had just passed over, in almost a straight line! "Square away the yards!" shouted out Captain Miles, while the men at the wheel shifted the helm to prevent the vessel from broaching-to; and, in another moment we were pitching and tossing through the choppy head-sea which we had now to meet, the ship rolling from side to side, and tumbling about like a whale in its death flurry, as she raced on ahead again before the stiff north-western blast.
"Well!" exclaimed Captain Miles presently, "of all the sudden changes of wind I ever encountered on the ocean, this beats everything! It has literally jumped round the compass." "I fancy it is the tail-end of the hurricane," said Mr Marline.

"It is a very lucky thing we wore ship in time." "Lucky, you call it ?" rejoined Captain Miles gravely, eyeing the foremast anxiously the while, fearful of anything being carried away, when we would be left to the mercy of the cruel waves.

"Man alive, it is only through the mercy of Providence that we are not now sunk fathoms deep below the sea!".