When I stepped out on deck I found that the character of the weather had changed during the three hours or so that I had spent in the cuddy.  The young moon had, of course, set some time before; the sky had grown overcast and seemed to be threatening rain; the clouds were sweeping up from about south-south-west, and a light breeze, that seemed likely to freshen, was blowing from that direction, driving great masses of chill, wet fog along before it of so dense a character that it was scarcely possible to make out the foremast from the head of the poop-ladder. Altogether it threatened to be a distinctly unpleasant night for the unfortunate men whose duty it would be to keep a look-out through the hours of darkness.  Carter, in a thick pilot-cloth jacket, was walking to and fro on the poop, with a short pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth, when I joined him.