The three mates laid their heads gravely together over the capstan for a minute or two, after which Finch seemed to perceive that the first of the two ways was the safest; though of course the nearer we should get to the land, the less chance there was of clearing it afterwards, should her cables part, or the anchors drag. The two boats still alongside, and two others dropped from the davits, were manned at once and set to towing the Indiaman ahead, in-shore; while the bower and sheet anchors were got out to the cat-heads ready for letting go, cables overhauled, ranged, and clinched as quickly as possible, and the deep-sea lead passed along to take soundings every few minutes. On we crept, slow as death, and almost as still, except the jerk of the oars from the heaving water at her bows, and the loud flap of the big topsails now and then, everything aloft save them and the brailed foresail being already close furled; the clouds all the while rising away along our larboard beam nor'west and north, over the gray bank on the horizon, till once more you could scarce say which point the wind would come from, unless by the huge purple heap of vapour in the midst. The sun had got low, and he shivered his dazzling spokes of light behind one edge of it, as if 'twere a mountain you saw over some coast or other: indeed, you'd have thought the ship almost shut in by land on both sides of her, which was what seemed to terrify the passengers most, as they gathered about the poop-stairs and watched it,--_which_ was the true land and which the clouds, 'twas hard to say,--and the sea gloomed writhing between them like a huge lake in the mountains. I saw Sir Charles Hyde walk out of the round-house and in again, glancing uneasily about: his daughter was standing with another young lady, gazing at the land; and at sight of her sweet, curious face, I'd have given worlds to be able to do something that might save it from the chance, possibly, of being that very night dashed amongst the breakers on a lee-shore in the dark--or at best, suppose the Almighty favoured any of us so far, perhaps landed in the wilds of Africa. Had there been aught man could do more, why, though I never should get a smile for it, I'd have compassed it, mate or no mate; but all was done that could be done and I had nothing to say. Westwood came near her, too, apparently seeing our bad case at last to some extent, and both trying to break it to her and to assure her mind; so I folded my arms again, and kept my eyes hard fixed upon the bank of cloud, as some new weather-mark stole out in it, and the sea stretched breathless away below, like new-melted lead. The air was like to choke you--or rather there was none--as if water, sky, and everything else wanted _life_, and one would fain have caught the first rush of the tornado into his mouth--the men emptying the dipper on deck from the cask, from sheer loathing. As for the land,