It happened presently that the General, in speaking of the beauty of English inland scenery, mentioned the county in which Southbourne was situated, and instanced in particular the country around Hanwitch, a town lying not half a dozen miles from Southbourne. Holdsworth pricked his ears, and joined in the conversation. He had reason to remember Hanwitch. One of the happiest days he had spent, during the three months he had been ashore, was that in which he had driven Dolly over to that town, and dined in the queer little hotel that fronted a piece of river-scenery as beautiful as any that is to be found up the Thames. Whilst he and the General talked, the skipper argued with Mr. St. Aubyn on the merits of the English as a paying people. St. Aubyn declared that the English public, taken in the aggregate, was a mean public, rarely liberal, and then liberal in wrong directions, supporting quack institutions, responding to quack appeals, and ignoring true excellence, especially histrionic excellence. Both grew warm; then Mr. Holland joined in. He sent the discussion wandering from the point, and in stepped Mr. Ashton. Meanwhile the decanters went round, the cuddy grew dark, and the negro was looking at the steward for orders to light the swinging lamps. Hark! A loud cry from the deck, followed by a sudden rush of feet, and the ship heeled over--over--yet over! The women shrieked; the skylight turned black; plates, decanters, cutlery, glass, rolled from the table and fell with quick crashes. The decks fore and aft echoed with loud calls. You could hear the water gurgling in the lee port-holes. A keen blue gleam flashed upon the skylight; but if thunder followed the lightning it was inaudible amid the wild and continuous shrieking of the wind. The skipper and Holdsworth scrambled to the companion-ladder and gained the deck. In a trice they saw what had happened. The ship, with all sails set, had been taken aback. Away to windward, in the direction directly contrary to where the wind had been blowing before dinner, the sky was livid, flinging an early night upon the sea, and sending forth a tempest of wind that tore the water into shreds of foam. The whole force of the hurricane was upon the ship’s canvas, which lay backed against the masts, and the vessel lay on her beam-ends, her masts making an angle of forty degrees with the horizon. The confusion was indescribable. Every halliard had been let go; but the yards were jammed by the sails, and would not descend. The clew-lines were manned, but the sheets would not stir an inch through the blocks. Nor was the worst of the squall, tempest, hurricane, whatever it might be, upon them yet; that livid pall of cloud which the lightning was seaming with zigzag fire was still to come, and with it the full fury its scowling aspect portended. “My God!” thundered the skipper to the second mate, who stood white, cowed, and apparently helpless, “what have you brought us into?”