CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE.
It is March, 1856.

The short autumn day is rapidly giving place to night; and darkness, and the horror of a great tempest is settling down upon the desolate grey sea, which heaves and seethes for ever around Cape Horn.
A great clipper ship, the noblest and swiftest of her class, is hurling along her vast length before the terrible west wind.

Hour by hour through the short and gloomy day, sail after sail has gone fluttering in; till now, at night-fall, she reels and rolls before the storm under a single close reefed maintopsail.
There is a humming, and a roaring, and a rushing of great waters, so that they who are clinging to the bulwarks, and watching awe-struck this great work of the Lord's, cannot hear one another though they shout.

Now there is a grey mountain which chases the ship, overtakes her, pours cataracts of water over her rounded stern, and goes hissing and booming past her.

And now a roll more frantic than usual, nigh dips her mainyard, and sends the water spouting wildly over her bulwarks.
("Oh, you very miserable ass," said Captain Brentwood; "to sit down and try to describe the indescribable.