"Not so bright by a good deal," the captain said. "There is a change in the colour of the sky--it is not so blue. The wind has fallen too, and I fancy by twelve o'clock there will be a calm. Of course we cannot be surprised if we do have a change. We have had a splendid spell of weather, and we are getting into stormy latitudes now." When the passengers went up after breakfast they found that the _Flying Scud_ was scarcely moving through the water. The sails hung idly against the masts, and the yards creaked as the vessel rose and fell slightly on an almost invisible swell. "This would be a good opportunity," the captain said cheerfully, "to get down our light spars; the snugger we are the better for rounding the Horn. Mr. Ryan, send all hands aloft, and send down all spars over the topmast." The crew swarmed up the rigging, and in two hours the _Flying Scud_ was stripped of the upper yards and lofty spars. "She looks very ugly," Marion Renshaw said. "Do you not think so, Mary?" "Hideous," Mary Mitford agreed. "She is in fighting trim now," Mr. Atherton said. "Yes, but who are we going to fight?" Marion asked. "We are going to have a skirmish with the weather, I fancy, Miss Renshaw. I don't say we are going to have a storm," he went on as the girls looked anxiously up at the sky, "but you can see for yourselves that there is a change since yesterday. The wind has dropped and the sky is dull and hazy, the sea looks sullen, the bright little waves we were accustomed to are all gone, and as you see by the motion of the vessel there is an underground swell, though we can scarcely notice it on the water." "Which way do you think the wind will come from, Mr. Atherton?" Mary Mitford asked. "I fancy it will come from the west, or perhaps north-west. Look at those light streaks of cloud high up in the air; they are travelling to the southeast." "Look how fast they are going," Mary Mitford said as she looked up, "and we have not a breath of wind here." "We shall have it soon," Mr. Atherton said. "You see that dark line on the water coming up from the west. I am glad to see it. It is very much better to have the wind freshen up gradually to a gale than to lie becalmed until it strikes you suddenly." The girls stood at the poop-rail watching the sailors engaged in putting lashings on to every movable object on deck. In ten minutes the dark line came up to them, and the _Flying Scud_ began to move through the water. The courses were brailed up and stowed. The wind rapidly increased in strength, and the captain presently requested the passengers to go below, or at any rate to give up their seats. "There is nothing like having the deck cleared," he said. "If it comes on to blow a bit and there is any movement, the chairs would be charging about from side to side, and will not only break themselves up, but perhaps break someone's leg."