‘Very well, sir,’ said the captain. ‘I shall keep all fast with my boats. The calamity can’t be helped. I’m not going to increase it by sacrificing my men’s lives. The poor devils will have had a boat of their own, I suppose. Show blue lights, will ye, Mr. Prance, and send a rocket up from time to time.’ They were burning a flare over the quarter-deck rail at that moment--some turpentine arrangement, that threw out a long flickering flame and a great coil of smoke from the yawning mouth of the tin funnel that contained the mixture. It was like watching the ship by sheet-lightning to see a large part of her amidships and her mainmast and the pale lights of the mainsail hanging from the yard in the grip of the gear--to see all this come and go as the flame leapt and faded. There was a crowd of terrified passengers on the poop, some of them ladies, hugging themselves in dressing-gowns and shawls; and out of the heart of the little mob rose the saw-like notes of Colonel Bannister. ‘These collisions,’ I heard him cry, ‘never _can_ take place if a proper look-out be kept. It is preposterous to argue. I’d compel the oldest seaman who contradicted me to eat his words. Why, have I been making the voyage to India four times----’ But the rest of his observations were drowned in cries of astonishment and alarm from the ladies as a rocket, discharged close to them, went hissing and shearing up athwart the howling wind in a stream of fire, breaking on high into a blood-red ball, that floated swiftly landwards, like an electric meteor, ghastly against the moonshine, with a wide crimson atmosphere about it that tinctured the very scud. A moment after a blue light was burnt over the side from the head of the poop ladder, whereat there was a general recoil and more shrill exclamations from the ladies. In fact, these wild mystical lights as it were coming on top of the fancy of men drowning astern, and colouring the ship with unearthly glares, and flinging a wonderful complexion of horror upon the night for a wide space round about the pitching and groaning Indiaman, put such an element of mystery and fear into the scene that though I was by no means a new hand at such sea-shows, I will own to shuddering again and yet again as I overhung the side of the poop, striving to discern any object that might resemble a boat in the foam-whitened gloom into which the lugger had slided. ‘What has happened? Everybody is so excited that one can’t get at the real story.’ I turned quickly, and saw the tall figure of a lady at my side. She was habited in a cloak, the hood of which was over her head, and darkened her face almost to the concealment of it, saving her eyes, which shone large, liquid, with a clear red spot in the depths, from the reflection of the flare at the quarter-deck bulwark.