By not doing so many a gallant ship with all hands on board is lost through the carelessness of bad navigators.
The cloud in the east, meanwhile, rose higher in the heavens, showing a bit of clear sky for a moment at its base, when it began to travel towards the ship at great speed, but in a very eccentric fashion, whirling round and looking as if it were dancing on the surface of the water.
"I can't make it out," said Mr Marline in a puzzled sort of way.
"There must be a good deal of wind at the back of it; but, why doesn't it keep a straight course towards us, eh sir ?" "It's a whirlwind, I fancy," replied Captain Miles; "I've seen a good many in the South Atlantic, near the African coast, although never one before in these latitudes so far from land." "Are they dangerous at all, captain ?" I asked, rather anxiously.
"No, Tom, not unless you got in the vortex of one, when it might twist the spars out of a ship perhaps, though I never saw any mischief done by one myself.

Mind your helm," added Captain Miles to the man at the wheel, whose office at present was a sinecure, for the ship was almost becalmed and the rudder swaying to and fro from port to starboard as it listed.

"If the wind catches us suddenly we may be taken aback, and I want you to be ready when I give the word." This made the sailor who was "taking his trick" all alert, instead of lounging over the spokes as he had been doing previously, listening to our talk.
Presently, a quick puff of air came from the west again, and the _Josephine_ began to gather way; but almost in an instant afterwards the wind shifted right ahead, coming down with the cloud, and the yards were at once braced round, the vessel being headed towards the north.
The cloud approached rapidly now on our weather bow; and, as it got nearer, we could see that its bottom edge, which was attenuated to the proportions of a slender pillar of vapour, seemed to be united to the water, the sea, where it joined the surface, being greatly agitated, foaming up in columns of spray that were circled round and round and then drawn up in corkscrew fashion into the denser body above.
"Why, it's a water-spout!" exclaimed Mr Marline in great surprise.
"So it is," said the captain, a bit startled and perplexed too.

"Look sharp, Marline, and see to the hatches being battened down and the scuppers open; for, if the blessed thing bursts immediately overhead, it will flood our decks with a deluge of water worse than if we had shipped a heavy sea." "Aye, aye, sir," answered the other, scuttling down the poop-ladder to attend to these orders; but he had hardly left the captain's side ere a terrific gust of wind struck us, coming from the same direction as the water-spout.
The instant after, the wind shifted round to the opposite quarter, and then a series of squalls, hot and strong, seemed to assail us from almost every point of the compass at once.
"Hands shorten sail!" roared out Captain Miles again, using the palms of his two hands before his mouth for a speaking trumpet.

"Be smart, men! Some of you brail up the spanker here and man the jib downhaul.