In the Gulf
Stream, thus late in June, hailstones were pelting the _Spray_, and
lightning was pouring down from the clouds, not in flashes alone, but
in almost continuous streams. By slants, however, day and night I
worked the sloop in toward the coast, where, on the 25th of June, off
Fire Island, she fell into the tornado which, an hour earlier, had
swept over New York city with lightning that wrecked buildings and
sent trees flying about in splinters; even ships at docks had parted
their moorings and smashed into other ships, doing great damage. It
was the climax storm of the voyage, but I saw the unmistakable
character of it in time to have all snug aboard and receive it under
bare poles. Even so, the sloop shivered when it struck her, and she
heeled over unwillingly on her beam ends; but rounding to, with a
sea-anchor ahead, she righted and faced out the storm. In the midst of
the gale I could do no more than look on, for what is a man in a storm
like this? I had seen one electric storm on the voyage, off the coast
of Madagascar, but it was unlike this one. Here the lightning kept on
longer, and thunderbolts fell in the sea all about. Up to this time I
was bound for New York; but when all was over I rose, made sail, and
hove the sloop round from starboard to port tack, to make for a quiet
harbor to think the matter over; and so, under short sail, she reached
in for the coast of Long Island, while I sat thinking and watching the
lights of coasting-vessels which now began to appear in sight.
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