At eight bells in the first watch it began to thunder and lighten furiously; but the thunder, though close, was quite inaudible in the tremendous uproar of the wind and sea. It blew a hurricane: there were no more squalls now; but one continuous tornado, which in its passage through that great gaunt skeleton, the ship's rigging and bare poles, howled and yelled and roared so terrifically, as would have silenced a salvo of artillery fired alongside. The overwhelming sea ran in dark watery mountains crested with devilish fire. The inky blackness added supernatural horror; the wrath of the Almighty seemed upon them; and His hand to drop the black sky down on them for their funeral pall. Surely Noah from his ark saw nothing more terrible. What is that? Close on the lee bow: chose: the flash of a gun, another; another; another. A ship in distress firing minute-guns in their ears; yet no sound: human thunder silenced, as God's thunder was silenced, by the uproar of His greater creatures in their mad rage. The _Agra_ fired two minute-guns to let the other poor ship know she had a companion in her helplessness and her distress, and probably a companion in her fate. Even this companionship added its mite of danger: for both ships were mere playthings of the elements; they might be tossed together; and then, what would be their fate? Two eggs clashed together in a great boiling caldron, and all the life spilt out. Yet did each flash shoot a ray of humanity and sympathy into the thick black supernatural horror. And now came calamity upon calamity. A tremendous sea broke the tiller at the rudder-head, and not only was the ship in danger of falling off and shipping the sea, but the rudder hammered her awfully, and bade fair to stave in her counter, which is another word for Destruction. Thus death came at them with two hands open at once. These vessels always carry a spare tiller: they tried to ship it; but the difficulty was prodigious. No light but the miserable deck-lantern--one glowworm in Egypt supernaturally darkened--the _Agra_ never on an even keel, and heeling over like a seesaw more than a ship; and then every time they did place the tiller, and get the strain on with their luff tackles, the awful sea gave it a blow and knocked it away like a hair.