The night grew blacker as the mist increased with the somewhat moderating gale, and a long, heaving swell came rolling up from the Atlantic, each succeeding sea appearing to rear its gigantic volume higher, farther, fiercer than its predecessor, and still the good ship steamed on through the darkness. A light at her foretop, and an indistinct glimmer at the binnacle, only made the surrounding obscurity appear more palpable, and through the dense fog, which seemed to pervade the very deck, and to hang around the spars and tackle, it was difficult to distinguish the two phantom figures at the wheel and the look-out man in the bows. The captain ever and anon dived to his cabin to consult his chart, and re-appearing on the wet, slippery deck, cast an anxious eye at the ship’s compass, and the course she was lying--then glanced to windward, where some huge wave flung its crest of foam into the light, and sporting with that powerful steamer as with a plaything, dashed its beating spray, in wantonness of strength, high over the protecting bulwarks, till the very yards dripped and streamed with brine. A few gruff words, unintelligible to the landsmen, were addressed to the struggling steersmen, and again the captain glanced anxiously at the compass, and knit his brows and seemed ill at ease. Between the decks, confiding passengers snored in their berths and dreamt of home. Little thought they of darkness and fog and driving seas. They had paid their passage-money, and they were to be delivered safe at their destination--was it not in the bond? They were, besides, in the Channel; and the ladies on board derived unspeakable relief and consolation from the knowledge that they were once more in soundings--and they, too, slept the sleep of innocence and security. So midnight passed, and still the good ship held steadily on.