Shortly after this, the wind veered round to the north, and came on to blow in quick, fretful puffs. The sky grew cloudy, and indications were not wanting of the approach of a gale. Holdsworth took the helm, whilst Johnson lowered the sail and close-reefed it, and the quick jump of the sea, coupled with the small space of sail shown, making it impossible for them to head for the east, without driving bodily to leeward, they slackened out the sheet and let the boat run, keeping the wind about two points on her port quarter. A squall of rain came up and wetted them. They turned their mouths in the direction whence it came, and gaped to receive the delicious drops; but it blew against their faces and slantwise along the sea, and was soon over. It left a little pool on one of the thwarts, and Holdsworth told the boy to put his lips to it. He did so, and lapped the moisture like a dog; whilst Holdsworth and Johnson removed the handkerchiefs from their necks which the rain had damped, and sucked them. The wind increased, the sea became heavy, and the heavens overcast with a vast extent of lead-coloured cloud that stretched from horizon to horizon. At noon, when the boat was on the summit of a wave, Johnson caught sight of a vessel on their lee quarter. The boat plunged downwards, and the vessel was lost to view; but, on mounting again, they beheld the vessel, under double-reefed top-sails, standing westwards right across their stern. She was not above a mile and a half away, but she might as well have been a thousand, for the boat could no more have made for her in that sea than she could have sailed in the wind’s eye. There was a faint chance that the people on board of her might catch sight of the shawl that streamed like a black flag from the mast-head; and, each time the boat sank into a hollow, the poor men waited with wild and dreadful eagerness for her to rise, that they might observe whether the vessel had seen and was following them. But she did not alter her course, and in ten minutes’ time vanished in the haze. Neither of the men spoke: Johnson, by the expression on his face, appeared to have resigned himself to despair, and all Holdsworth’s thoughts were concentrated in keeping the boat clear of the seas which boiled around her. He was very weak; so much so that there were moments when, a sea catching the boat under the stern, he had scarcely the power to keep the yoke square and prevent the rudder from being jammed athwart-ships upon its pintles by the pressure of the water; which, had it happened, would have swept the boat broadside on and filled her. Added to this, the torment of thirst was again upon him. He kept the end of his handkerchief in his mouth, literally chewing it to pulp, and constantly directing thirsty glances at the clouds, and praying for another shower of rain.