Suddenly, while we were thus looking at our distant craft, a dazzling, blinding glare shot athwart the firmament, and as instantly vanished, leaving eye and brain, however, dizzy with that instant of concentrated light. A sulphurous smell, at the same moment, pervaded the atmosphere. Then followed a roar so stunning, so close at hand, that, if a thousand batteries had been discharged right overhead, the noise could not have been more deafening. For a second I thought one of the boats, or at least the schooner, had been struck by the lightning; but when my brain ceased reeling, I saw they had escaped. This dazzling flash, this awful thunder-clap were succeeded by a darkness and silence as profound, as oppressive, as foreboding as before. Then came a few rain-drops, which, big and heavy, pattered, like huge hail-stones, on the waters around us. These were followed by another silence as deep as before; and then the hurricane, with a roar like a lion, was upon us. It would be vain to attempt finding language adequate to describe what followed. In an instant the air was filled with millions of particles of spray, which, torn from the surface of the deep, and carried in the arms of the tempest, hid every thing, except objects within a few feet, entirely from sight. The stinging of these fine particles, as they struck the cheek, was like that of mustard-shot. Meantime the force of the wind was such that it was impossible to sit erect—and all stooped, as if by a common impulse, before the blast. Shading my eyes with my hand, to protect the orbs from the spray, I glanced at the place where the schooner had been last seen. But she was no longer visible there. A moment after, however, in a casual opening of the prospect, I caught a glimpse of her form, far away ahead, as, half buried in mist, she drove, like a sheeted spectre, before the gale. The instant after she vanished from my vision, and the squall closed around us like the walls of a dungeon. Fortunately the launch was already before the wind, so that we had only to hold on, and wait the issue. The other boats were soon out of sight, and speedily out of hearing also. I could, therefore, do nothing for the rest of my command, and resigning myself to fate, I bent my head between my knees, ordered the men to lie down, and so let the hurricane have its way. The rain was now falling, as it falls only in the tropics, in vast sheets of water: the drops, instead of descending perpendicularly, driving slantingly before the hurricane, and striking the water with gigantic force, keeping the deep in commotion all around. The hissing of the rain, the roar of the tempest, the blinding glare of lightning, and the terrific thunder-claps combined to make a scene more awful than I had ever witnessed in all my long experience.