There were only three sleeping bunks aboard, one being double-berthed,
so they "turned in" alternately.

When they had finished their feast, celebrating the Assumption of their
patron saint, it was a little past midnight. Three of them crept away
to bed in the small dark recesses that resembled coffin-shelves; and
the three others went up on deck to get on with their often interrupted,
heavy labour of fish-catching; the latter were Yann, Sylvestre, and one
of their fellow-villagers known as Guillaume.

It was daylight, the everlasting day of those regions--a pale, dim
light, resembling no other--bathing all things, like the gleams of a
setting sun. Around them stretched an immense colourless waste, and
excepting the planks of their ship, all seemed transparent, ethereal,
and fairy-like. The eye could not distinguish what the scene might be:
first it appeared as a quivering mirror that had no objects to reflect;
and in the distance it became a desert of vapour; and beyond that a
void, having neither horizon nor limits.

The damp freshness of the air was more intensely penetrating than dry
frost; and when breathing it, one tasted the flavour of brine. All was
calm, and the rain had ceased; overhead the clouds, without form or
colour, seemed to conceal that latent light that could not be explained;
the eye could see clearly, yet one was still conscious of the night;
this dimness was all of an indefinable hue.

The three men on deck had lived since their childhood upon the frigid
seas, in the very midst of their mists, which are vague and troubled
as the background of dreams. They were accustomed to see this varying