'Good God!' exclaimed Pooley, 'what is to happen next? The glass low, you say? Well, that means a change of some sort, though not necessarily bad weather. What are these feelings you speak of, Charke?' 'The feelings of a sailor,' he replied. 'You know them as well as I do. Ha!' he exclaimed, 'there's lightning in the south. No time to be lost.' Then he seized the boatswain's whistle, which he had hung round his neck and used since the man himself had become disabled, and blew it as a signal to his three remaining hands to be ready for his orders. 'Now then,' he cried, 'up with you and stow the few sails that there are. What do you say?'--to one who muttered something--'tired--been working all day? Why, damn you! haven't I been working too.' Charke rarely swore, but he was impelled to do so now, especially as he had moved out of Bella's hearing. 'Do you see that lightning down there in the south? Do you want the ship to be blown over and go to the bottom in her? Here, you stop at the wheel,' addressing the man who was already at it, 'we others can do it somehow. Follow me'; and away he went to the topsail yard, selecting the most arduous part of the business for himself. While he muttered to himself as he did so: 'Now, if I should go, too--fall off the yard--they are doomed beyond all help. Nothing then can save him.' Which thought caused a strange, weird kind of smile to be on his face as he sprang up the ratlins. And, stirred to action by his own indomitable energy, the men did set about the work and managed it somehow, the sails being stowed in a very unshipshape fashion (or what would have been an unshipshape fashion if the proper quantity of sailors had been there to do the job) and in such a manner that the first gust of the coming tempest would be as likely as not to blow them clean off their lashings. Still, it was done at last, and not too soon either, since, ere they had concluded their work, the lightning was flashing incessantly and huge drops of rain were falling. 'It's a south-easterly wind,' said Gilbert to Bella, turning his cheek towards it. 'Where will it blow us to now?'