What the words “that dreadful cry” referred to in the song, the reader must imagine; in our case it was that of a shark. A monster of that species, attracted probably by his instinct, which led him to expect prey on such a night as this, swam around and around the ship; the intense darkness of the night and phosphorescent gleam of the ocean made his huge bulk show out in relief, and appear treble his real size. With a swab trailed astern, we soon got him within darting distance, and hove an iron into his carcass, which stopped his marauding forever. He was an enormous sized one, and required the united strength of half a dozen of us, after he was mortally wounded, to drag him part way from the water. The storm did us no damage--the lightning ran over our yards and the various ironwork of the ship in a manner to terrify the boldest. The reason assigned for so few cases of injury to ships by lightning, is the number of points presented in her structure for the dispersion of the electricity. One precaution is invariably taken, that is, to remove the pump-spears, and fill their place with swabs, to prevent the iron rods acting as conductors for the electric fluid into the hold of the ship. There is something terrifying in such a scene, that carries with it a sense of danger to the sturdiest: no matter how many such outbreaks have before been viewed by the beholder, still an indefinable fear will pervade his system. The gale is a feature to which, in his routine of life upon the ocean, the seaman becomes accustomed, and only asks for a short warning to battle with it; but there is something in the lightning that makes one feel completely at its mercy, though we know that in this as in all other perilous situations, we are under the protection of the same wise Creator. On these grounds we were continually meeting merchantmen bound to and from the various Australian and East Indian ports, and it was a matter of congratulation to us to see that all the swiftest and best of these ships carried our own starry flag, maintaining the pre-eminence of our ship-builders in this far-off sea.