Now, we had been waiting all this time for the smoke to lift from the hull of the Leviathan, and permit us to see, as far as it might be seen at such a distance, that which happened upon those woeful decks. As for the curtain of the vapour, it was but a spur to the imagination, a terrible cloud interposed between our burning eyes and those scenes of horror and of bloodshed it hid from us. Rifle shots we heard incessantly—now in volleys, again by twos and threes, then once more in a general exchange which seemed to speak of the crisis of battle. Nor might we argue a good omen of the stillness which fell afterwards. For, surely, it could be nothing else than the silence of victory, the final triumph of one faction above the others. This I pointed out to Larry as we lifted our glasses for the twentieth time unavailingly. “I take it that the men are up against the rogues, Larry. We could wish for nothing better than news of their success.” “You think so, sir?” “I trust a seaman before a landshark any day, whatever his ship or nationality. He is more likely to honour a woman, Larry—there will be some measure of honesty in him; and if it is put to the vote, he will haul down that flag the first time he is asked. Why should he not? He has nothing to fear ashore. The rogues keep him afloat. I’d wager a hundred guineas that homesickness began this fight, and will carry it to a conclusion—that is if the seamen win——” “And if they do not, sir?” “Then God help the ship, Larry—she will not be afloat a week.” McShanus interposed to say that they were between the devil and the deep sea, surely. I found him wonderfully serious. It is odd to think how many cheery fellows, who write gaily of life and death in the newspaper, have never seen a gun fired in earnest or looked unflinchingly upon the face of death. “’Tis a coward I was,” said he, “and not ashamed of it. This very minute I tremble like a woman—though ’tis often of kindness a woman trembles and not of fear. Look yonder at the smoke lifting from off the face of the ship. What lies under it, my friends?—God Almighty, what are those feeling and thinking and suffering now that they are going to their Maker. ’Tis as though I, myself, had been called this instant to remember that I shall be as they—who knows when, who knows how? A cruel torment of a thought—God help me for it.” Here was a McShanus mood to be laughed off, and that it would have been but for the panorama suddenly disclosed by the soaring smoke which gradually lifted from the face of the hidden ship. Nor was it clear in a twinkling that the seamen (as I supposed would be the case) had obtained the upper hand, and were become the masters of the vessel.