A sharp boom of thunder came from the direction of the sea. ’Twas like a ship testing her distance by throwing a shot. You found yourself hearkening for the broadside to follow. I looked at the clock and again went to the house door. The earth was sobbing and smoking under a fall of rain that came down straight like harp strings; the lightning touched each liquid line into blue crystal; the trees hissed to the deluge, and I stood listening for wind, but there was none. “I’ll wait till this shower thins,” said I, “and then be off.” “I’ll be a wet walk, William, I fear,” said my aunt. “It’s a wet life all round, with us sailors,” said I, extending my tumbler for another ladleful of punch, in obedience to an eloquent gesture on the part of my uncle. It was midnight before they would let me go, and still there was no wind. I was well primed with grog, and felt tight and jolly; had accepted an invitation to spend a month of my stay ashore down here at Sandwich; had listened with a countenance lighted up with smiles to Uncle Joe’s “I’ll warrant ye it shall go hard if I don’t help you into command next year, my lad,” pronounced with one eye closed, the other eye humid, and his face awork with punch and benevolence; then came some hearty hand-shaking, some still heartier “God-bless-ye’s,” and there being a pause outside, forth I walked, stepping high and something dancingly, the collar of my pea-coat to my ears, the round brim of my hat turned down to clear the scuppers for the next downpour. CHAPTER III. THE GIBBET. There was plenty of lightning, some of the flashes near, and the sky overhead was soot. But the thunder was not constant. It growled at intervals afar, now and again burst at the distance of a mile, but without tropic noise. It seemed to me that the electric mess was silting away north, and that there would come a clear sky in the south presently, with a breeze from that quarter. This being my notion, I stepped out vigorously, with a punch-inspired lift of my feet, as I made for the sand hills, singing a jolly sailor’s song as I marched, but not thinking of the words I sang. No, nothing while I marched and sang aloud could I think of but the snug and fragrant parlor I had quitted and Uncle Joe’s hearty reception and his promises. When I was got upon the sand hills I wished I had stuck to the road. It was the hills, not the sand, that bothered me. I soared and sank as I went, and presently my legs took a feeling of twist in them, as though they had been corkscrews; but I pushed on stoutly, making a straight course for the sea, where the lightning would give me a frequent sight of the scene of Downs; where I should be able to taste the first of the air that blew and hit its quarter to a point; and where, best of all, the sand hardened into beach.