“Wot are we to ’ave, steward?” enquired Joe Dumsby, in a feeble voice.

“Plumduff, my boy, so cheer up,” replied the steward, who was busy with the charming ingredients of a suet pudding, which was the only dish to be attempted, owing to the ease with which it could be both cooked and served up.

Accordingly, the suet pudding was made; the men began to cat; the gale began to “take off”, as seaman express it; and, Although things were still very far removed from a state of comfort, they began to be more endurable; health began to return to the sick, and hope to those who had previously given way to despair.

CHAPTER XII

BELL ROCK BILLOWS—­AN UNEXPECTED VISIT—­A DISASTER AND A RESCUE

It is pleasant, it is profoundly enjoyable, to sit on the margin of the sea during the dead calm that not unfrequently succeeds a wild storm, and watch the gentle undulations of the glass-like surface, which the very gulls seem to be disinclined to ruffle with their wings as they descend to hover above their own reflected images.

It is pleasant to watch this from the shore, where the waves fall in low murmuring ripples, or from the ship’s deck, far out upon the sea, where there is no sound of water save the laving of the vessel’s bow as she rises and sinks in the broad-backed swell; but there is something more than pleasant, there is something deeply and peculiarly interesting, in the same scene when viewed from such a position as the Bell Rock; for there, owing to the position of the rock and the depth of water around it, the observer beholds, at the same moment, the presence, as it were, of storm and calm.

The largest waves there are seen immediately after a storm has passed away, not during its continuance, no matter how furious the gale may have been, for the rushing wind has a tendency to blow down the waves, so to speak, and prevent their rising to their utmost height.  It is when the storm is over that the swell rises; but as this swell appears only like large undulations, it does not impress the beholder with its magnitude until it draws near to the rock and begins to feel the checking influence of the bottom of the sea.  The upper part of the swell, having then greater velocity than the lower part, assumes more and more the form of a billow.  As it comes on it towers up like a great green wall of glittering glass, moving with a grand, solemn motion, which does not at first give the idea of much force or impetus.  As it nears the rock, however, its height (probably fifteen or twenty feet) becomes apparent; its velocity increases; the top, with what may be termed gentle rapidity, rushes in advance of the base; its dark green side becomes concave; the upper edge lips over, then curls majestically downwards, as if bowing to a superior power, and a gleam of light flashes for a moment on the curling top.  As yet there is no sound; all has occurred in the profound silence