After the _Amethyst_ was some days' sail beyond the equator and running on a wind, with her topsails set and starboard tacks on board, the weather became peculiarly gloomy and squally, and one day, when it was Derval's watch with Mr. Tyeblock, the Captain, who had been studying the barometer below, came suddenly on deck, and looked aloft and at the sky. "Trim the yards anew, Mr. Tyeblock," said he; "the wind is getting more ahead." "Very good, sir," and the tacks and sheets were promptly attended to. Joe Grummet and other old seamen were now seen looking occasionally to windward, for they knew well by the dark clouds that were coming banking up from the horizon that they had foul weather to prepare for; but it came slowly. Two or three days of sunless gloom followed, during which no sights could be had or reckoning properly worked, and the doubts concerning the latter were fated to have a perilous solution. Night was closing amid mist and obscurity, the sea was rising, the vessel rolling heavily, and all was in considerable confusion in the cabin below, where everything that was not made fast _fetched away_, and went crashing to leeward and got jammed or broken. Coiled on a chest in the companion-way, Derval had been courting a little sleep, when he heard the hoarse voice of Joe Grummet shouting: "All hands, ahoy! all hands, ahoy! tumble up and take in sail!" Thick and fast the rain-drops were now pouring on the deck, gorging the foaming scuppers, rushing as they only do in the tropics; and rolling from side to side, as if she would dip her yard-arms in the mountain-like billows that ran towards her, the _Amethyst_, with her courses set and topsails nearly close-reefed, was ploughing before the wind through a black and midnight sea. Loud and repeated orders rang confusedly on the rising blast, together with the trampling of feet, the creaking of blocks, the bellowing of the wind through the strained rigging, where loose ropes were flying wildly about, and there were the roar, the wash, and fierce incessant gurgle of the sea as it burst over the bows and boiled away beneath the counter. "Close-reef topsails!" cried Captain Talbot, while the storm deepened; and with others, Derval and Tom Titford, under Mr. Bitts, ascended, to do their part of this task, by the fore-rigging, often as they went embracing the shrouds with their legs and arms; and the ill-conditioned third mate was heard using terrible language as he urged them all up to the cross-trees and out upon the yard. "Out you go to the starboard ear-ring, you wretched little biscuit-nibbler, and don't look as if you had joined the Shakers!" he exclaimed, administering a blow with his clenched hand to poor Tom Tit, who turned his little white face upbraidingly towards him, and then lay out manfully on one yard-arm as Derval did on the other, and aided by the strong hands of the seamen at the centre of the spar, got the heavy wet canvas tied hard and fast with the reef points.