The wind, meanwhile, had for the twentieth time within the last hour died away, and we now lay moving unquietly on the troubled surface of the deep. The man-of-war was to be seen in his old position, and as he rose and fell sluggishly in the distant gloom, his white canvass gleaming out with sepulchral effect through the darkness, one might almost have fancied that the shadowy foe was some gigantic spirit ship, hanging like an evil genius upon our quarter. As if awed by the sudden change which had come over the firmament, both vessels had simultaneously ceased firing. The pause on the part of the Englishman, however, was only momentary. The outlines of his shadowy form were soon illuminated by the red glare of his guns, bringing his tall masts out in bold relief against the gloomy back-ground, and shedding a sulphurous hue on everything around. The sullen booming of the guns; the ghastly light flung over the deep; the low unquiet murmurs of the sea; and the darkness gathering more and more terrific over the firmament and reflected back from the sea until it seemed as colorless as ink, made up a scene whose sublimity and horror no pen can describe. The men looked like ghosts, as they flitted to and fro across the decks; and on every countenance was impressed the feelings of the awestruck owner. “Cannot yonder fellow see the doom that awaits him, unless he gives over firing, and prepares for the squall?” said the old quarter-master. Even as he spoke a low hollow murmur was heard as if coming out of the deep, which struck a nameless terror into our hearts. It was the sure presage of the coming hurricane. The men were already aloft getting in the sails, but as that murmured sound struck on the skipper’s ear, he shouted, “Loose and let run—in with every thing—lose not a second—cut with and cut all.” He had hardly commenced speaking when the dark canopy of clouds on the starboard seaboard lifted up, as if by magic, several degrees from the horizon, displaying a long lurid, yet sickly streak of light, against which the surges rose and fell in bold relief. At the same instant that low wild sound was heard again rising out of the deep; then a hoarse murmur, the like of which I had never listened to before, issued from the lurid seaboard; then an ominous pause of a moment, and only a moment, succeeded; and, while we gazed in mute wonder on each other at these extraordinary phenomena, a deep, smothered rumbling sound was heard, growing rapidly nigher and nigher, and increasing in loudness as it approached; the sea on the starboard horizon became a mass of foam; and, with a rushing noise, the tempest swept down upon us, hissing, roaring, and screaming through our rigging, as if a thousand unearthly beings were riding by upon the blast. The men had scarcely time to see the approaching danger, and hear the captain’s cry,