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It was midnight before they would let me go, and still there was no wind. I was well primed with grog, and felt tight and jolly; had accepted an invitation to spend a month of my stay ashore down here at Sandwich; had listened with a countenance lighted up with smiles to Uncle Joe’s “I’ll warrant ye it shall go hard if I don’t help you into command next year, my lad,” pronounced with one eye closed, the other eye humid, and his face awork with punch and benevolence; then came some hearty hand-shaking, some still heartier “God-bless-ye’s,” and there being a pause outside, forth I walked, stepping high and something dancingly, the collar of my pea-coat to my ears, the round brim of my hat turned down to clear the scuppers for the next downpour.

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There was plenty of lightning, some of the flashes near, and the sky overhead was soot. But the thunder was not constant. It growled at intervals afar, now and again burst at the distance of a mile, but without tropic noise. It seemed to me that the electric mess was silting away north, and that there would come a clear sky in the south presently, with a breeze from that quarter.