On the next day it was the same, excepting that the proceedings were varied by a tremendously heavy thunder-storm, followed by, instead of the wind which Captain Leicester so earnestly hoped for, a perfect deluge of rain, which lasted for rather more than an hour. It was a regular tropical downpour; the water descended, not in separate detached drops, but in _sheets_, which splashed down on the decks as if from a cataract. Advantage was taken of this copious downfall of pure fresh water to refill all the water-casks; after which the scuppers were plugged, wash-deck tubs filled, and all hands, stripping to the skin, indulged in the unwonted luxury of a thorough ablution in the warm soft water, finishing up by rousing out all their "wash clothes," and treating them to the same beneficial process. The storm cleared away as rapidly as it had worked up, leaving the sky absolutely cloudless, and the water thrashed down by the rain until it was smooth as a polished mirror. The heat was intense, and the men, notwithstanding their refreshing bath, went about their work languidly, perspiring at every pore. It was a positive relief to them to see the sun at last go down behind the gleaming horizon, and a greater relief still when, an hour later, a faint breeze from the eastward came creeping over the water, and, barely filling the _Aurora's_ light upper sails, gave her just sufficient way through the water to allow of her head being kept in the right direction. At eight o'clock that evening Mr Bowen retired to his cabin, it being then his watch below, and at nine the skipper followed his example. The ship was then stealing along through the water at a speed of about two knots, the royals, topgallantsails, and more lofty staysails just "asleep," the topsails alternately filling out and flapping again to the masts with the barely perceptible swing of the ship over the low, long, sleepy heave of the swell, and the courses drooping heavily and uselessly from the yards. The sky was "as clear as a bell," to use a favourite metaphor of Ritson's, not a trace of cloud being visible in any part of the vast sapphire vault which stretched overhead, spangled here and there with a few stars of the first magnitude, and with the moon, nearly at the full, hanging in the midst like a disc of burnished silver, her pure soft light flooding the sea with its dazzling radiance, and causing the sails to stand out like sheets of ivory against the deep dark blue of the sky. There seemed to be no immediate prospect of any change in the weather, but George was thankful that the ship was really at last moving once more--though ever so slowly--in the right direction; and, fervently hoping that the breeze would last long enough to run him into the "trades," he went below with an easy mind, after giving Ritson the usual stereotyped order to call him should any untoward event occur.