The wind was rapidly freshening; but, instead of setting in steadily from any quarter, it blew in fitful gusts, chopping all round the horizon. Yet it brought a delicious coolness with it, which was peculiarly refreshing after the heat of the day. The sea now began to rise, and as the dark billows heaved up in the spectral light, they wore an aspect so ghastly that I almost shuddered to look on them—an aspect, however, that was partially relieved when the unquiet puffs of air crisped their edges into silver, or rolled a sheet of crackling light along their surface. With the freshening of the wind the schooner began slowly to move ahead, but, ever and anon, as the breeze died away, or struck her from a new quarter, she would settle like a log on the water, moaning as if in pain. At such times the dying cadence of the wind, wailing through the rigging, smote on the ear with strange, weird power. “A threatening prospect,” said the skipper, approaching me, and breaking the profound silence which had reigned for several minutes, “we shall have a tempest before long, and I fear it will be no child’s play.” “I never saw such ominous signs before. The very air seems oppressed and sick, as if it trembled at approaching ruin. Mark the faces even of our oldest veterans—they betray a vague sentiment of fear, such as I never saw on their countenances before.” “Aye!” replied the skipper, abstractedly, for he was gazing anxiously astern, “the cloud comes up like a race-horse. How it whirls over and over, rolling its dark masses along; it reminds me of the mountains which the old Titans, we read of in school, heaved against Jove. But here am I thinking of classic fables when I ought to be taking in sail. Ho!” he exclaimed, lifting his voice, as a sharp gust, premonitory of the coming hurricane, whistled across the hamper, “in sail—every rag!”