In the Bay of Biscay, as usual, the power of the gale was felt more severely than elsewhere. "There's some sort o' mystery about the matter," said Jack Molloy to William Armstrong, as they cowered together under the shelter of the bridge. "Why the Atlantic should tumble into this 'ere bay with greater wiolence than elsewhere is beyond my comprehension. But any man wi' half an eye can see that it _do_ do it! Jist look at that!" There was something indeed to look at, for, even while he spoke, a mighty wave tumbled on board of the vessel, rushed over the fore deck like Niagara rapids in miniature, and slushed wildly about for a considerable time before it found its way through the scuppers, into the grey wilderness of heaving billows from which it sprang. The great ship quivered, and seemed for a moment to stagger under the blow, while the wind shrieked through the rigging as if laughing at the success of its efforts, but the whitey-grey hull rose heavily, yet steadily, out of the churning foam, rode triumphant over the broad-backed billow that had struck her, and dived ponderously into the valley of waters beyond. "Don't you think," said the young soldier, whose general knowledge was a little more extensive than that of the seaman, "that the Gulf Stream may have something to do with it?" Molloy looked at the deck with philosophically solemn countenance. Deriving no apparent inspiration from that quarter, he gazed on the tumultuous chaos of salt-water with a perplexed expression. Finally and gravely he shook his weather-beaten head-- "Can't see that nohow," he said. "In course I knows that the Gulf Stream comes out the Gulf o' Mexico, cuts across the Atlantic in a nor'-easterly direction, goes slap agin the west of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and then scurries away up the coast o' Norway--though _why_ it should do so is best known to itself; p'r'aps it's arter the fashion of an angry woman, accordin' to its own sweet will; but what has that got for to do wi' the Bay of Biscay O? That's wot I wants to know." "More to do with it than you think, Jack," answered the soldier. "In the first place, you're not quite, though partly, correct about the Gulf Stream--" "Well, I ain't zactly a scienkrific stoodent, you know. Don't purfess to be." "Just so, Jack. Neither am I, but I have inquired into this matter in a general way, an' here's _my_ notions about it." "Draw it fine, Willum; don't be flowery," said the sailor, renewing his quid. "Moreover, if you'll take the advice of an old salt you'll keep a tighter grip o' that belayin'-pin you've got hold of, unless you wants to be washed overboard. Now then, fire away! I'm all attention, as the cat said at the mouth o' the mouse-hole." "Well, then," began Armstrong, with the slightly conscious air of superior knowledge, "the Gulf Stream does _not_ rise in the Gulf of Mexico--" "Did I say that it did, Willum?"