The next day I had the forenoon watch; the weather had lulled unexpectedly nor was there much sea, and the deck was all alive, to take advantage of the fine blink, when the man at the mast-head sang out—­“Breakers right ahead, sir.”

“Breakers!” said Mr. Splinter, in great astonishment.  “Breakers!—­why, the man must be mad!  I say, Jenkins——­”

“Breakers close under the bows,” sang out the boatswain from forward.

“The devil!” quoth Splinter, and he ran along the gangway, and ascended the forecastle, while I kept close to his heels.  We looked out ahead, and there we certainly did see a splashing, and boiling, and white foaming of the ocean, that unquestionably looked very like breakers.  Gradually, this splashing and foaming appearance took a circular whisking shape, as if the clear green sea, for a space of a hundred yards in diameter, had been stirred about by a gigantic invisible spurtle, until everything hissed again; and the curious part of it was, that the agitation of the water seemed to keep ahead of us, as if the breeze which impelled us had also floated it onwards.  At length the whirling circle of white foam ascended higher and higher, and then gradually contracted itself into a spinning black tube, which wavered about for all the world like a gigantic loch-leech held by the tail between the finger and thumb, while it was poking its vast snout about in the clouds in search of a spot to fasten on.

“Is the boat-gun on the forecastle loaded?” said Captain Deadeye.

“It is, sir.”

“Then luff a bit—­that will do—­fire.”

The gun was discharged, and down rushed the black wavering pillar in a watery avalanche, and in a minute after the dark heaving billows rolled over the spot whereout it arose, as if no such thing had ever been.

This said troubling of the waters was neither more nor less than a waterspout, which again is neither more nor less than a whirlwind at sea, which gradually whisks the water round and round, and up and up, as you see straws so raised, until it reaches a certain height, when it invariably breaks.  Before this I had thought that waterspout was created by some next to supernatural exertion of the power of the Deity, in order to suck up water into the clouds, that they, like the wine-skins in Spain, might be filled with rain.

The morning after, the weather was clear and beautiful, although the wind blew half a gale.  Nothing particular happened until about seven o’clock in the evening.  I had been invited to dine with the gunroom officers this day, and every thing was going on smooth and comfortable, when Mr. Splinter spoke.  “I say, master, don’t you smell gunpowder?”

“Yes, I do,” said the little master, “or something deuced like it.”

To explain the particular comfort of our position, it may be right to mention that the magazine of a brig sloop is exactly under the gunroom.  Three of the American skippers had been quartered on the gunroom mess, and they were all at table.  Snuff, snuff, smelled one, and another sniffled,—­“Gunpowder, I guess, and in a state of ignition.”