‘Very unpleasant state of suspense this,’ said little Mr. Saunders, stealing to my side and looking up into my face. ‘Very,’ I answered; ‘but it seems as if the weather was to extinguish our anxiety as regards the brig.’ ‘Yes,’ said he. ‘I heard the captain tell Mr. Prance that he believes there is a gale of wind behind that storm yonder. Gracious me! what a very vivid flash. Hark! it nears us quickly.’ There was a rattling peal of thunder now, a long volleying roar of it, and a few large drops of rain fell. Mr. Cocker stood at the rail with a telescope in his hand. He busily watched the men up aloft, sometimes letting fly an order to the boatswain in a voice that went past the ear like a stone from a sling. A large drop of rain splashed upon Mr. Saunders’s nose. ‘It’s about to burst, I think,’ said he, looking straight up into the heavens with his modest yearning eyes. ‘I shall go below;’ and down trotted the little creature. ‘Mr. Cocker,’ said I, ‘lend me your glass for an instant, will you?’ I pointed it at the brig. ‘Yes,’ I exclaimed, talking to the second-mate with the telescope at my eye; ‘I believe I was not mistaken. Full of men, indeed! Phew! Why, there are hands enough upon her yards to furnish out the complement of a fifty-gun frigate.’ It was indeed as I said. They were furling all canvas upon the stranger, intending apparently to let her meet what was to come with a small storm foretrysail, which I could see a crowd of seamen bending and making ready for setting. Her fore and topsail yards were loaded with men swarming like bees along the thin delicate lines of spars, and even as I watched, the canvas they were rolling up melted away into slender streaks of white. In the cross-trees of both masts, and higher yet on the yards above, and in the tops also, were a number of men busily employed in sending down the royal, skysail, and topgallant yards and housing the topgallant masts. There looked to me to be at least a hundred of a crew to the vessel. You found something almost ghastly and absolutely startling in the sharp distinctness of the little fabric rolling against the thunder-black skies behind her, and upon the long, malignant, greenish-hued swell in which the plunging lightning was sparkling as though the water were crackling with phosphoric fires. Dark as the atmosphere was with the deep shadow of storm, the brig stood out to the eye visible to the minutest detail the sight could reach to, plunging heavily under her naked spars, with her wet black sides darting out the mirrored flame of the lightning flashes with as clear a dazzle as glass or polished brass would throw. ‘The number of her crew witnesses to her character,’ said I, returning the telescope to Mr. Cocker. ‘Oh, there is no doubt of her,’ he exclaimed; ‘the captain’s an old hand, and twigged her speedily.’