long waiting for a shift of
wind. For this condition of affairs lasted not only for days, but at
last mounted to weeks; a circumstance that was practically unique in the
history of those waters.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE WRECK OF THE MERMAID.

At length, however, the inevitable change came; the wind died away to a
breathless calm; the ocean took on the semblance of a sea of gently
undulating glass; and the hitherto cloudless sky imperceptibly lost its
intensity of blue as a thin, streaky haze gradually veiled it, through
which the sun shone feebly, a rayless disc of throbbing white fire. The
heat and closeness of the atmosphere were intense, even on deck, while
the temperature below was practically unendurable. The brig lost
steerage-way about two o'clock in the afternoon; and when the sun sank
beneath the western horizon that night, looming through the haze red as
blood, distorted in shape, and magnified to thrice his normal
dimensions, there was little if any perceptible change in the
atmospheric conditions, although the mercury in the barometer had been
falling slowly but steadily all day.

The brig was now within the tropic of Capricorn, and not very far to the
eastward of the Paumotu Archipelago, in which region night succeeds day
with such astounding rapidity that the stars become visible within ten
minutes of the sun's disappearance. Yet no stars appeared on this
particular night; on the contrary, a darkness that could be felt settled
down upon the brig almost with the suddenness of a drawn curtain. The
darkness was as profound as that of the interior of a coal-mine; it was
literally impossible to see one's hand held close to one's eyes; and
movement about the deck was accomplished blindly and gropingly, with
hands outspread to avoid collision with the most familiar objects, whose
positions could now be only roughly guessed at. And the silence was as
profound as the darkness; for the swell had subsided with almost
startling rapidity, and the brig was so nearly motionless that there was
none of the creaking of timbers or spars, none of the "cheeping" of
blocks and gear that is usually to be heard under such circumstances.
Even the men forward were silent, as though they were waiting and
listening for something, they knew not what. So intense was the silence
that even the striking of a match to light a pipe became almost
startling; while its tiny flame burnt steadily and without a semblance
of wavering