It blew fiercely all that night. A mountainous sea was rolling two hours after the first of the gale, amid which the _Countess Ida_ lay hove-to under a small storm trysail, making very heavy weather of it indeed. There was a deal to talk about, but no opportunity for conversing. Few were present at the dinner-table, though the sea then running was moderate in comparison with the sickening heights to which it swelled later on; and there was little more to be done throughout the meal than to hold on for dear life, to keep a keen weather-eye lifting upon one’s food, and to gaze speechlessly across the table at one another amid an uproar of howling hurricane, of roaring waters, of straining bulkheads, of a ceaseless clattering of crockery and other noisy articles, that rendered conversation sheerly impossible. And you may add to all this a good deal of consternation amongst us passengers. I had seen some weather in my time, but never the like of such a tossing and plunging bout as this. There were moments, indeed, when one felt it high time to go to prayers: I mean when the ship would lie down on the slant of some prodigious surge until she was hanging by her keel off the slope with her broadside upon the water, as though it were the bottom of her. There were many heave-overs of this sort, every one of which was accompanied by half-stifled shrieks from the cabins, by the sounds of the crash of boxes, unlashed articles, chairs, movable commodities of all kinds rushing with lightning-speed to leeward. Heavy contributions had been made upon our nervous systems by the incidents of the day: the vicinity of the brig--the prospect of having our windpipes slit--the furious thunderstorm--the spectacle of the lightning-struck craft: and the stock of fortitude left amongst us was but slender for a manly and courageous encounter of such an experience as this night was to prove. I vividly recall the appearance of the cuddy at eleven o’clock when the hurricane was nearing its height. The ship was hove-to on the starboard tack, and the lamps in the saloon would sometimes swing over to larboard till their globes appeared to rest against the upper deck. I had managed in some sort of parrot fashion to claw along the table to abreast of a swinging tray, where I mixed myself a glass of cold brandy grog, with which I slided down to a sofa on the lee-side; and there I sat looking up at the people to windward as at a row of figures in a gallery.