The sail was sleepily set. Humbugging about with stunsails to the
cat's-paws little pleased the men, especially at night. For three
days they had been boxhauling the yards about to no purpose, and
it was sickening work running stunsail-booms out to airs that died
in their struggles to reach us. However, here was a draught at
last, and the old gurgling and moaning sounds of the breathless,
sluggish swell washing heavily like liquid lead to the sides were
replaced by the tinkling noises of waters parting at the bows with
a pretty little seething of expiring foam, and the hiss of exploding
froth-bells. At eleven o'clock the light breeze was still holding,
and the ship was floating softly through the dusk, the paring
of moon swaying like a silver sickle over the port mizzen topsail
yard-arm, everything quiet along the decks, no light save the
sheen from the lamps in the binnacle, and nothing stirring but the
figure of a man on the forecastle pacing athwartships, and blotting
out at every step a handful of the stars which lay like dust
on the blackness, under the yawn of the forecourse. On a sudden a
steamer's lights showed on the starboard bow--a green beam, and a
yellow one above, with the water on fire beneath them, and sparks
floating away upon her coil of smoke, that made you think of the
spangles of a falling rocket. She went past swiftly, at no great
distance from us. There was not a moan in the hot breeze to disturb
the wonderful ocean stillness, and you almost thought you caught
the beating of the iron heart in her, and the curious monotonous
songs which engines sing as they work. She swept past like a phantom,
running a line of illuminated windows along, which resembled a
row of street-lamps out in the darkness; and as she came on to our
quarter she struck seven bells (half-past eleven), the rich metallic
notes of which I clearly heard; and with the trembling of the last