I had not been a minute in the hatchway when the heavens seemed to be split open to the very heart of their depths by a flash of lightning, followed in the space of the beat of a heart by a shock of thunder that seemed to happen immediately over our mastheads--a most soul-subduing crash, if ever there was one! and as if by magic, the rain ceased, and the atmosphere sensibly brightened. There was a great noise of shrieking in the cuddy, and half blinded, and pretty handsomely dazed by that terrible blast of lightning and the thunder-clap which had followed, I crept down the steps with my pulse beating hard in my ears to see what had happened, scarce knowing but that some one had been struck and perhaps killed. ‘What is it?’ I shouted to the colonel, who stood at the foot of the ladder. ‘Only Mrs. Hudson in hysterics,’ he roared; on hearing which I went up again, being in no temper to make one of the nervous company below. The swell had flattened; all to starboard there was an oozing as of daylight into the breathless thickness, with ugly hump-shaped masses of black vapour defining themselves up in the ugly sallow smother in a sort of writhing way, as though they were coming together in a jumble; but to port it was as black as thunder, an inky slope hoary with rain, with lightning spitting and zigzagging all over it. I went to the rail, where stood Mr. Cocker with his clothes full of water. ‘A pretty little shower!’ said I. ‘Very,’ he answered, with his face showing of a bleached look like the flesh of a washerwoman’s hand. ‘A plague on this sort of work, say I! This serge shrinks consumedly when drenched, and my trousers will be up to my knees to-morrow morning--three pounds ten as good as washed out of a man’s pocket.’ ‘Where’s your glass, Mr. Cocker?’ ‘In that hencoop there,’ said he. I pulled out and directed it at the dim blotch of brig that had caught my eye stealing out of the wet dusk like the phantom of a ship. ‘By my great-grandfather’s wig!’ cried I with a start. ‘So! no fear _now_ of being boarded. Our windpipes are safe for the present. Look for yourself, Mr. Cocker.’ He ogled her an instant, then bawled to the skipper, who was speaking to Mr. Prance. ‘The brig’s been struck, sir! Her mainmast is over the side.’ In very truth it was as he declared. I whipped the glass out of his hand for another look, and, sure enough, could clearly distinguish a whole lumber of wreckage lifting to the roll of the subdued swell alongside the swaying hull of the brig. Her foremast and topmast stood intact to the cross-trees, but abaft she was as completely denuded as if a chopper had been laid to the foot of the mast. The mess is not to be described. I could make out that a length of her bulwark was crushed flat, and the black lines of shrouds and gear went snaking overboard like so many serpents wriggling out of the hatches into the water. But the gloom was too deep to suffer me to see what her people were doing.