.

I have said that the ocean stood still as well as the air: to the eye
it was so, for the swell under-running the glitter on its surface was
so even, so equable, and so rhythmical, that the surface seemed not in
motion. Occasionally a dimple broke the surface, and strips of dark
sea-weed floated by, showing up the green; dim things rose to the
surface and, guessing the presence of man, sank slowly and dissolved
from sight.

Two days, never to be recovered, passed, and still the calm continued.
On the morning of the third day it breezed up from the nor'-nor'west,
and they continued their course, a cloud of canvas, every sail drawing,
and the music of the ripple under the forefoot.

Captain Stannistreet was a genius in his profession; he could get more
speed out of a schooner than any other man afloat, and carry more
canvas without losing a stick. He was also, fortunately for Lestrange,
a man of refinement and education, and what was better still,
understanding.

They were pacing the deck one afternoon, when Lestrange, who was
walking with his hands behind him, and his eyes counting the brown
dowels in the cream-white planking, broke silence.

"You don't believe in visions and dreams?"

"How do you know that?" replied the other.

"Oh, I only put it as a question; most people say they don't."

"Yes, but most people do."

"I do," said Lestrange.

He was silent for a moment.

"You know my trouble so well that I won't bother you going over it, but
there has come over me of late a feeling--it is like a waking dream."

"Yes?"

"I can't quite explain, for it is as if I saw something which my
intelligence could not comprehend, or make an image of."

"I think I know what you mean."

"I don't think you do. This is something quite strange. I am fifty, and
in fifty years a man has experienced, as a rule, all the ordinary and
most of the extraordinary sensations that a human being can be
subjected to. Well, I have never felt this sensation before; it comes
on only at times. I see, as you might imagine, a young baby sees, and
things are before me that I do not comprehend. It is not through my
bodily eyes that this sensation comes, but through some window of the
mind, from before which a curtain has been drawn."

"That's strange," said Stannistreet, who did not like the conversation
over-much, being simply a schooner captain and a plain man, though
intelligent enough and sympathetic.

"This something tells me,"