rarely we could see her at all; for nothing gets up so fast as a swell, sometimes, near the Line; neither one way nor the other, but right up and down, without a breath of wind, in huge smooth hills of water, darker than lead, not a speck of foam, and the sky hot and clear. 'Twas almost as if a weight had been lifted from off the long heaving calm, and the whole round of it were going up dark into the sky, in one weltering jumble, the more strange that it was quiet: sweep up it took the boat, and the bright wet oar-blades spread feathering out for another stroke to steady her, let alone making way; though that was nothing to the look of the Indiaman when we got near. She was rolling her big black hull round in it as helpless as a cask; now one side, then the other, dipping gunwale to in the round swell that came heaping up level with her very rail, and went sheeting out bright through the bulwarks again the masts jumping, clamps and boom-irons creaking on the yards, and every sail on her shaking, as her lower yardarms took it by turns to aim at the water--you heard all the noise of it, the plunge of her flat broadside, the plash from her scuppers, the jolts of her rudder, and voices on board; and wet you may swear she _was_ from stem to stern. "Comfortable!" thought I; "we've come home too soon of a washing-day, and may wait at the door, I fear!" "Oh dear," exclaimed the three griffins, "how are we to get in!" and the young ladies looked pale at the sight. The mate steered for her larboard quarter without saying a word, but I saw he lost coolness and got nervous--not at all the man for a hard pinch: seemingly, he meant to dash alongside and hook on. "If you do, sir," said I, "you'll be smashed to staves;" and all at once the ship appeared almost over our heads, while the boat took a send in. I looked to Jacobs and the men, and they gave one long stroke off, that seemed next heave to put a quarter of a mile between us. "D----d close shave that," said the bowman. "Begs pardon, sir," said Jacobs, touching his hat, with his eyes still fixed past the mate, upon me; "hasn't we better keep steadying off, sir, till such time as the swell--" "Hold your jaw, sirrah," growled Finch, as he looked ahead still more flurried; "there's a _squall_ coming yonder, gentlemen, and if we don't get quick aboard, we may lose the ship in it! Pull round, d'ye hear there." Sure enough, when we lifted, there was the French brig clear out against a sulky patch of dark-gray sky, growing in as it were far off behind the uneven swell, till _it_ began to pale; the Indiaman's topsails gave a loud flap out, too, one after the other, and fell to the mast again. Suddenly I caught the glance of Violet Hyde's eyes watching me seriously as I sat overhauling the Indiaman for a notion of what to do, and I fancied the charming girl had somehow got nearer to me during the last minute or two, whether she knew it or not: