The horizon is lost in a grey mist. Everything looks so big; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is thunder over the sea that sounds like a warning of doom. Shapes of people are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist. The fishing-boats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they hurry into the harbour, leaning far over to one side.

I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship.

'I can't make her out,' he said. "She's a Russian ship, by the look of her; but she's moving about in the strangest way. She can't make up her mind. She seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to run up north in the open sea, or to come into the harbour here.'

Vocabulary:

Horizon: Where the sky meets the land (or sea)
Doom: Something bad that is certain to happen
Shrouded: Wrapped around and covered
Dip: Go quickly down a bit
Ground swell: Waves getting bigger as they touch shore
Coastguard: A man with the job of watching shipping
Spy-glass: Telescope
Make her out: Understand her (ships are 'female' in English)