ead the sails hung straight from the head-ropes, with not even a
flutter to send a welcome draught to the sweltering deck below.
Everywhere was a smell of blistering paint and molten pitch, for the
sun, all day blazing on our iron sides, had heated the hull like a
furnace wall. Time and again we sluiced the decks, but still pitch
oozed from the gaping seams to blister our naked feet, and the moisture
dried from the scorched planking almost as quickly as we could draw the
water. We waited for relief at sundown, and hoped for a tropical
downpour to put us to rights.

Far to the horizon the sea spread out in a glassy stillness, broken
only by an occasional movement among the fish. A widening ring would
mark a rise--followed by the quick, affrighted flutter of a shoal of
flying fish; then the dolphin, darting in eager pursuit, the sun's rays
striking on their glistening sides at each leap and flurry. A few
sharp seconds of glorious action, then silence, and the level sea
stretching out unbroken to the track of the westing sun.

Gasping for a breath of cooler air, we watched the sun go down, but
there was no sign of wind, no promise of movement in the faint, vapoury
cirrhus that attended his setting.

* * * * *

Ten days of calms (blazing sun or a torrent of rain) and a few faint
airs in the night time--and we had gained but a hundred miles. 'Our
smart passage,' that we had hoped for when winds were fair and fresh,
was out of question; but deep-sea philosophy has a counter for every
occasion, and when the wind headed us or failed, someone among us would
surely say, "Well, wot's th' odds, anyway? More bloomin' days, more
bloomin' dollars, ain't it?" Small comfort this to the Old Man, who
was now in the vilest of tempers, and spent his days in cursing the
idle steersman, and his nights in quarrelling with the Mates about the
trim. If the yards were sharp up, it would be, "What are ye thinkin'
about, Mister? Get these yards braced in, an' look damn smart about
it!" If they were squared, nothing would do but they must be braced
forward, where the sails hung straight down, motionless, as before.
Everything and everybody was wrong, and the empty grog bottles went
'_plomp_' out of the stern ports with unusual frequency. When we were
outward bound, the baffling winds that we met off Cape Horn found him
calm enough; they were to be expected in that quarter, and in the stir
and action of workin