“Besides, we are two to one, and in all constitutional governments the majority rules.”

“Have you both made up your minds?” inquired Willis.

“Yes, we are quite decided.”

“In that case,” said Willis, “let us hoist the anchor and be off home.”

“Home! but we are determined to have the skins first.”

“No, you are not,” said Willis; “I know you better than you know yourselves.  You are both brave fellows, but I know you would not, for all the skins in the world, have your good mother suppose that you were buffeted about by the waves in a storm.”

“True; up with the anchor, Willis,” said Fritz.

“Be it so,” said Jack, shaking his fist menacingly at the silent forest, “but we shall lose nothing by waiting.”

The sailor had not erred in his calculations, for they had scarcely unfurled the sail before they heard the distant rumbling of the storm.  As soon as the first flash of lightning shot across the sky, Jack put his forefinger of one hand on the wrist of the other, and began counting one—­two—­three.

“Do you feel feverish?” inquired Willis.

“No, not personally,” replied Jack; “I am feeling the pulse of the storm—­twenty-four—­twenty-five—­twenty-six—­it is a mile off.”

“Aye! how do you make that out?”

“Very easily; you recollect Ernest telling us that light travelled so rapidly, that the time it occupied in passing from one point to another of the earth’s surface was scarcely perceptible to our senses?”

“Yes, but I thought he was spinning a yarn at the time.”

“You were wrong, Willis; he likewise told us that sound travels at the rate of four hundred yards in a second.”

“Well, but—­”

“Have patience, Willis!  When the lightning flashes, the electric spark is discharged, is it not?”

“Well, I was never high enough aloft to see.”

“But others have been; Newton and Franklin have seen it.  Now, if the sound reaches our ears a second after the flash, it has travelled four hundred yards.  If we hear it twelve or thirteen seconds after, it has travelled twelve or thirteen times four hundred yards, or about half a mile, and so on.”

“But what has that to do with your pulse?”

“In the first place, I am in perfect health, am I not?”

“I hope so, Master Jack.”

“Then when our systems are in good order, the pulse, keeping fractions out of view, beats once in every second; and consequently, though we do not always carry a watch, we always have our arteries about us, and may therefore always reckon time.”

“Now I understand.”

“Ah! then we are to escape this time without the ‘Mariner’s March.’”

“It appears, Master Jack, that you have turned philosopher as well as your brothers.  Can you tell me what causes lightning?”

“Yes, I can, Willis.  You must know, in the first place, that all the layers of the atmosphere are, more or less, charged with electricity.”