We fell silent, all of us gazing intently ahead, never knowing but that another wild light would show that way at any moment. Though I was willing enough to believe it to have been a volcanic upheaval of flame, I had still a fancy that it might be an explosion on board a ship too, some big craft that had been out of sight all day in the thickness; and I kept my eyes fixed upon the horizon in that quarter with a half-formed fancy in me of witnessing something there by the light of some stronger flash than the rest out of the stalking and lifting blackness astern of us. ‘I cannot help thinking,’ said Miss Laura, rising as she spoke, and arching her fingers above her eyes to peer through the hollow of her hands, ‘that I sometimes see a pale, steam-like column resembling ascending smoke that spreads out on top in the form of a palm-tree. _Now_ I see it!’ she cried, as a brilliant flash behind us sent its ghastly yellow into the far confines ahead, till the whole ocean lifted dark and flat to it. The thunder began to rattle ominously, the light breeze faltered, and the foresail swung sulkily to the bowing of the vessel upon the swell that was distinctly increasing in weight. We all looked, but none of us could distinguish anything resembling the appearance the girl indicated. ‘If the flame rose from the sea,’ said I, ‘it is tolerably certain to have sent up a great body of steam. That is, no doubt, what you see, Miss Jennings.’ ‘It lingers,’ she exclaimed, continuing to stare. ‘The draught’s a-taking off,’ rumbled Finn. ‘Stand by for a neat little shower.’ As the air died away it grew stiflingly hot again, hotter, it seemed, than it was before the breeze blew. The huge volumes of dense shadows astern were literally raining lightning; the swell ran in molten glass, and the still comparatively subdued roar of the thunder came rolling along those sweeping, polished brows as though the ocean were an echoing floor and there were a body of giants away down where the lightning was sending colossal bowls at us.