No sooner were the hands down from the topsail-yards, however, than he had them up again to take in the courses, which had already been clewed up and were now furled; the _Josephine_ lying-to under close-reefed topsails, with the fore-topmast staysail set to keep her in command of her helm. She did not look so gay as she had done earlier in the day, with all her snowy plumage spread before the favouring breeze; but, she was all the better prepared to battle with the elements, and now steadily and sturdily awaited their onset. The struggle was not long delayed. Closer and closer came the whirling water-spout, surrounded by columns of misty spray and accompanied by the fierce wind. The sea was agitated with violent eddies that rocked the ship to her centre every moment; and, above the shriek of the constant squalls tearing through the rigging, and the splash of the boiling water at the foot of the terrible cloud column, we could distinguish a peculiar hoarse sucking noise, as if the whole herd of Neptune's horses were drinking their fill, and letting us know about it, too! CHAPTER TEN. DISRATED. I can't say what the rest felt; but I know that I, for one, was frightened when I heard that strange gurgling noise and saw the great black thing, spinning round like a teetotum and swirling up the water, coming down on our ship as if to overwhelm her! The squalls, which succeeded each other from different directions in rapid sequence, were even more dangerous than the water-spout; but Captain Miles was too good a seaman to be easily beaten, even by the most adverse circumstances. Telling off some of the best hands to the fore and main-braces on either side, so that these could be let go or hauled taut in an instant as the wind shifted, thus necessitating the vessel changing her tack with similar rapidity, he went to the helm himself; and from this point, with the assistance of Moggridge, he conned the ship as coolly as if he were in charge of a yacht trying to weather the mark-boat in a race so as to get to windward of her competitors! The captain was trying to make as much northing as he could, as well as endeavouring to run out of reach of the water-spout, which latter, although it gyrated about in the water so queerly and seemed moving every way at once, came up more from the eastwards, travelling to the south of west apparently; and, expert seaman that he was, in spite of the veering wind, which backed round every moment, he gallantly manoeuvred so as to gain his object--sailing ahead between the squalls, as it were. "Ready about!" he would call out one minute, when the main-topsail was backed and the fore-yard swung round; and, almost as soon as this was done and the weather braces handed, the cry "'bout ship!" was again repeated, when the _Josephine_ was brought once mere back to her previous bearings. Such tackings and beatings about, surely, no ship ever underwent before in so short a time!