"'D'ye know, sir,' put in the third mate, coming from forward, 'I'm in doubt it's going to be rather a sneezer, sir, if ye look round the larboard stun-s'ls.' Sure enough, if our fine gentleman had had time, amidst his politeness, just to cast an eye beyond his spread of cloth, he would have noticed the clouds gathered all in a lump to north-eastward, one shooting into another--the breast of them lowering down to the horizon, and getting the same colour as the waves, till it bulked out bodily in the middle. You'd have fancied the belly of it scarce half-a-mile off from the white yard-arms, and the hollow of it twenty--coming as stealthily as a ghost, that walks without feet after you, its face to yours, and the skirt of its winding-sheet in 'kingdom-come' all the while. I went up on the poop, and away behind the spanker I could see the sun gleam for one minute right on the eye of a stray cloud risen to nor'-west, with two short streaks of red, purple, and yellow together--what is called a 'wind-gall'; then it was gone. The American was talking away with jovial old Rollock and Ford, who began to look wise, and think there was mischief brewing in the weather. 'Mind your helm there, sirrah!' sung out the mate, walking aft to the wheel, as everything aloft fluttered. 'She won't lie her course, sir,' said the man. 'All aback, for'ud!' hailed the men at work on the bowsprit; and hard at it went all hands, trimming yards over and over again; the wind freshening fast, stu'nsails flapping, booms bending, and the whole spread of canvas in a cumber, to teach the mate not to be in such a hurry with his absurd merchantman's side-wings next time. The last stu'nsail he hauled down caught full aback before the wheel could keep her away quick enough; the sheet of it hitched foul at the boom-end, and crack through went the boom itself, with a smash that made the ladies think it a case of shipwreck commencing. The loose scud was flying fast out from behind the top of the clouds, and spreading away overhead, as if it would catch us on the other side; while the clouds themselves broke up slowly to both hands, and the north-east breeze came sweeping along right into the three topsails, the wind one way and the sea another. As she rounded away steadying before it, you felt the masts shake in her till the topsails blew out full; she gave one sudden bolt up with her stern, like an old jackass striking behind, which capsized three or four passengers in a heap, and next minute she was surging along through the wide heave of the water as gallantly as heart could wish, driving a wave under her bows that swung back under the fore-chains on both sides, with two boys running up the rigging far aloft on each mast to stow the royals. The next thing I looked at was poor Ford's nautical hat lifting alongside on the top of a wave, as if it were being handed up to him; but no sooner seen, than it was down in the hollow a quarter of a mile off, a couple of white gulls making