The night shut in squally and dark. The fleet was some three miles to leeward, for during the whole day we had carefully maintained the weather gauge. As the darkness increased we lost sight of the enemy’s ships, but their numerous lights glistening like stars along the seaboard, still pointed out to us their position. The wind was uncertain, now coming in fitful puffs, and then blowing steadily for a quarter of an hour, when it would again die away and sweep in squalls across the waste of waters. Scud clouds began to fly across the face of the heavens, obscuring the few stars, and giving a wild and ominous appearance to the firmament. Down to the west the seaboard was covered by a dense bank of clouds, out of which occasionally a flash of lightning would zig-zag, followed by a low hoarse growl of distant thunder. It was evident that a tempest was raging, far down in that quarter. On the opposite horizon, however, the sky was nearly free from clouds, only a few fleecy vapors being discernible in that quarter, through which the bright stars twinkled clear and lustrous. The English fleet lay between these two opposite quarters of the horizon—the right wing of the convoy stretching down almost into the utter darkness in that direction, and the left wing skirting along the horizon to the eastward. Along the whole expanse of seaboard, more than fifty lights were now glittering, like so many fire-flies winging through the gloom along the edge of a forest, on a summer eve. The scene was one of surpassing novelty, and drew forth the admiration even of our veteran tars. Now and then the vapors in the east would clear entirely away, leaving the firmament in that direction, sparkling with thousands of stars; and then again the murky shroud would enclose them in nearly total darkness. Occasionally, as if in contrast to this, a brighter flash of lightning would gleam, or a louder burst of thunder roll up from the dark bank of clouds enclosing the tempest to the westward.