making; "we are
going ahead, working down our southing, and will soon be able to steer
for New Zealand. She does walk along, and no mistake!" And then he
would look aloft, perhaps, and give an order for a brace to be tautened
here, or a sheet slackened there--the hours thus flying by in halcyon
moments, as far as the wind and sea, and the course of the ship, and all
on board were concerned--collectively and individually.

The nights in these southern latitudes were simply beautiful beyond
compare.

The moon had no sooner died out than she revived again, as if gifted
with perpetual youth--not an evening passing without her presence,
sooner or later, on the scene--and appeared, too, to have more dignity
of position and greater size than in the frigid north, ascending right
up to the very zenith, instead of merely skirting the heavens, as she
sometimes does here, and shining down from thence like a midnight sun in
radiant splendour. The Scorpion, also, amongst the various
constellations, was similarly promoted, occupying a place nearer the
centre of the firmament; while the Southern Cross, quite a new
acquaintance, followed by Castor and Pollux, began to descend towards
the sea, becoming more diagonal as the days drew on than when originally
observed, and finally vanishing from view head foremost.

As for the North Star, it had long since entirely disappeared; and only
the horses in Charles' Wain yet remained above the horizon towards that
point of the compass.

To Kate Meldrum's eyes, the sunsets were especially grand; for, as soon
as the time came for the glorious orb of day to sink to rest in the
golden west, a series of light amber-tinted clouds would arrange
themselves all round the horizon, as if with a studied pictorial effect,
like the stage grouping in what theatrical people term "a set piece;"
and then, by degrees, these clouds would become tinged with the
loveliest kaleidoscopic colours, all vividly bright--while the far-off
heaven that lay between them was of the purest palest rose-hued gold,
and the sky immediately above of a faint, ethereal, blueish, transparent
green.

In the daytime, especially as the ship drew nearer to the meridian of
the Cape, there was more life in, on, and about the ocean; and on
passing the Island of Tristan da Cunha, which the _Nancy Bell_ sailed by
some three hundred miles to the northward, Master Maurice Negus was
greeted with the sight of a sperm-whale.

This fellow wa