"While the match was being brought, he stood eyeing the witch with a look of defiance. He seized the light eagerly from the hand of a seaman, and though, as you may suppose, in the tremendous way the ship was rolling and pitching, it was impossible to take an aim, he fired. The gun went off with an explosion louder than I ever heard before, and a flash far more vivid. The noise was answered by a shriek of mocking laughter, and the flash only served to show still more clearly the hideous figure of the witch, jeering at us and threatening us with her staff. "Onward we rushed, and while the lightning lasted there she was seen as clearly, I tell you, as we had seen her at home. When the lightning ceased, the darkness of the night shut her out from our sight, but some even then affirmed that they saw the dim outline of her form against the northern sky. "Not a man on board turned in again that night, you may be sure, but all the watch who should have been below shrunk together in knots uttering their forebodings to each other, and earnestly wishing for the return of day. The longest night must have an end, and so had this, and, as the morning broke, the wind settled down into a moderate gale, which sent as forward on our course at the rate of twelve knots an hour. "The land was no longer in sight, the glorious sun came out bright and warm, and cheered our hearts, and we almost forgot the terrors of the night. I said that Mrs Derick had not witnessed the sight we had, but from her husband's manner, when he went below, she discovered that there was something wrong, and she would not rest till he had told her. He, as usual, tried to laugh it off, and to declare that there was nothing in it, but I saw that she was not satisfied, and that the circumstance was preying sadly on her mind. "In two days, by an observation made, we found that we were well to the westward of the south coast of America, and the wind veering round to the south, we kept away on a northerly course. Every day, as we got into more temperate latitudes, the weather became finer and warmer, and the spirits of the seamen rose proportionably, though they were not the men they would have been in the natural course of things. They had plenty of work to do, which kept their minds employed, in preparing for our visit to the Spanish coast; we got up the remainder of the guns from the hold and shipped them on their carriages, we sent up topgallant masts and yards, got out the flying jib-boom, and repaired the damages we had received in the gale. The carpenters also set to work to build a boat to supply the place of the one we had lost; while the captain and supercargo made arrangements for their transactions on the coast.