“Then we must make all snug.  Send down top-gallant yards and small sails directly.  We will strike top-gallant masts.  I will be out in a minute.”

Philip hastened on deck.  The sea was smooth, but already the moaning of the wind gave notice of the approaching storm.  The vacuum in the air was about to be filled up, and the convulsion would be terrible; a white haze gathered fast, thicker and thicker; the men were turned up, everything of weight was sent below, and the guns were secured.  Now came a blast of wind which careened the ship, passed over, and in a minute she righted as before; then another and another, fiercer and fiercer still.  The sea, although smooth, at last appeared white as a sheet with foam, as the typhoon swept along in its impetuous career; it burst upon the vessel, which bowed down to her gunwale and there remained; in a quarter of an hour the hurricane had passed over, and the vessel was relieved; but the sea had risen, and the wind was strong.  In another hour the blast again came, more wild, more furious than the first, the waves were dashed into their faces, torrents of rain descended, the ship was thrown on her beam ends, and thus remained till the wild blast had passed away, to sweep destruction far beyond them, leaving behind it a tumultuous angry sea.

“It is nearly over I believe, sir,” said Krantz.  “It is clearing up a little to windward.”

“We have had the worst of it, I believe,” said Philip.

“No! there is worse to come,” said a low voice near to Philip.  It was Schriften who spoke.

“A vessel to windward scudding before the gale,” cried Krantz.

Philip looked to windward, and in the spot where the horizon was clearest, he saw a vessel under topsails and foresail, standing right down.  “She is a large vessel; bring me my glass.”  The telescope was brought from the cabin, but before Philip could use it, a haze had again gathered up to windward, and the vessel was not to be seen.

“Thick again,” observed Philip, as he shut in his telescope; “we must look out for that vessel, that she does not run too close to us.”

“She has seen us, no doubt, sir,” said Krantz.

After a few minutes the typhoon again raged, and the atmosphere was of a murky gloom.  It seemed as if some heavy fog had been hurled along by the furious wind; nothing was to be distinguished except the white foam of the sea, and that not the distance of half a cable’s length, where it was lost in one dark gray mist.  The storm-staysail yielding to the force of the wind, was rent into strips, and flogged and cracked with a noise even louder than the gale.  The furious blast again blew over, and the mist cleared up a little.

“Ship on the weather beam close aboard of us,” cried one of the men.

Krantz and Philip sprung upon the gunwale, and beheld the large ship bearing right down upon them, not three cables’ length distant.