from wave to wave. The deep itself had sometimes the unreality, the
artificiality of the canvas sea of the theatre. Commonly it was livid and
cold in color; but there was a morning when it was delicately misted, and
where the mist left it clear, it was blue and exquisitely iridescent
under the pale sun; the wrinkled waves were finely pitted by the falling
spray. These were rare moments; mostly, when it was not like painted
canvas, is was hard like black rock, with surfaces of smooth cleavage.
Where it met the sky it lay flat and motionless, or in the rougher
weather carved itself along the horizon in successions of surges.

If the sun rose clear, it was overcast in a few hours; then the clouds
broke and let a little sunshine through, to close again before the dim
evening thickened over the waters. Sometimes the moon looked through the
ragged curtain of vapors; one night it seemed to shine till morning, and
shook a path of quicksilver from the horizon to the ship. Through every
change, after she had left the fog behind, the steamer drove on with the
pulse of her engines (that stopped no more than a man's heart stops) in a
course which had nothing to mark it but the spread of the furrows from
her sides, and the wake that foamed from her stern to the western verge
of the sea.

The life of the ship, like the life of the sea, was a sodden monotony,
with certain events which were part of the monotony. In the morning the
little steward's bugle called the passengers from their dreams, and half
an hour later called them to their breakfast, after such as chose had
been served with coffee by their bedroom-stewards. Then they went on
deck, where they read, or dozed in their chairs, or walked up and down,
or stood in the way of those who were walking; or played shuffleboard and
ring-toss; or smoked, and drank whiskey and aerated waters over their
cards and papers in the smoking-room; or wrote letters in the saloon or