Then four bells, which struck on deck during a lull in the roar of the gale, came with such sudden distinctness to their ears, as to make some of the ladies start and utter timid little ejaculations. The spell broken, a chorus of tongues clamoured out. Miss Hillier alone was silent. Then some dear foolish female affinity said, ‘Why, Amy, love, you’ve been crying!’ This the girl, with flaming cheeks denied, only the next minute to affirm, quite inconsequently, that if she had wept (which she was certain she had not), was not such a tale enough to make one, with any heart at all, shed tears? =The Third Evening.= East by S-½-South, under fore and main courses and upper and lower top-sails, sped the _Corona_ with the wind on her quarter. Aft, rose great water-hills, darkly green, with white crests, seeming, as each followed each, to hang momentarily suspended over the stern and threaten to overwhelm everything; then, as the good ship rose just in the nick of time, breaking with a long surge in sheets of milky foam away for’ard. The sun was setting sullenly behind a dense cloud-bank. An albatross or two flew screaming from one wave-crest to another right in the wake. It was a typical evening in the Southern Ocean, the long wash of whose seas reach from the foot of Cape Leuwin to the rugged cliffs of Fuego. ‘Well,’ continued the Captain, without any preface, as he took his seat facing the waiting and expectant little party. ‘Well, stare as I might aloft, I could not discover to where this Jacob’s ladder led. You see, at its best, it was only a column of dusky twilight, and the further end, from where I stood, was lost to view. As I gazed, it appeared to be gradually fading away. I rubbed my eyes; and when I again looked, all around was blacker than the blackest midnight, except where my fire still burned. For a while, I was puzzled to account for the disappearance of the light. Then the thought struck me that it might be caused by the fall of night in the upper world. Was I, I wondered, as I turned sadly to my fire, ever again to look upon the bright day, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the wonders of that fair earth now grown so dear to me? Truly was I one of those unhappy men who, as the Psalmist says, “sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron.” ‘Close to the pillar of light, just on its outside edge, I had noticed a long, slender, almost perpendicular pinnacle of lava towering upwards like the spire of a church. ‘At the base of this I securely moored my boat. Then, thinking that a cup of tea would cheer me up a little, I brewed one, and made a good meal. After this, lying down, I pondered many things, gazing always aloft. ‘Once I imagined I saw a star; but it disappeared before I could make sure.