flashes of white fire, where the sun's rays searched out the
glittering surfaces as the ship rolled. The awning had already been
spread upon the poop, in readiness for the advent of those energetic
occupants of the cuddy who made a point of promenading for half an hour
in order to generate an appetite for breakfast; the running gear had all
been bowsed taut and neatly coiled down; and the canvas, from which the
dew had already evaporated, soared aloft toward the deep, rich azure of
the zenith in great, gleaming, milk-white cloths of so soft, so tender,
so ethereal an aspect, that one would scarcely have been surprised to
see the skysails dissolve in vapour and go drifting away to leeward upon
the languid breeze. The main deck was lively with the coming and going
of the steerage passengers as they went to the galley to fetch their
breakfast; and there must have been between twenty and thirty children
chasing each other fore and aft, and dodging round their elders in their
play, filling the rich, sweet, morning air with the music of their
voices. There was a soft, seething sound over the side as the ship slid
gently along, accompanied by a constant iridescent gleam and flash of
the tiny bubbles that slipped along the bends and vanished at last in
the smooth, oil-like wake with its tiny whirlpools; and at frequent
intervals a shoal of flying-fish would spark out from under the bows and
go skimming and glittering away to port or starboard, like a shower of
brand-new silver dollars hove broadcast by the hand of old Father
Neptune himself. The cuddy breakfast was fairly under way, and a great
clattering of cups and saucers, knives and forks, and the hum of lively
conversation, accompanied by sundry savoury odours, came floating up
through the open skylights, when the chief mate's eye happened to be
attracted toward a gasket, streaming loose like an Irish pennant from
the fore topgallant yard, and he sang out to one of the ordinary seamen
to jump aloft and put it right. The fellow made his way up the ratlines
with extreme deliberation--for, indeed, a journey aloft in such
scorching heat was no joke--made up the loose gasket, and was in the
very act of swinging himself off the yard when, happening to be watching
him, I saw him suddenly pause and stiffen into an attitude of attention
as, holding on to the jackstay with one hand, he flung the other up to
his forehead and peered ahead under the sharp of it. For a full minute
h