“Your ship will be in port here some days, I hope?”
“No. We sail on Saturday.”
“Bless my life and soul!” exclaimed this good man, who was given to imploring benedictions upon his own head. “You sail on Saturday, and this is Thursday. Well, well! You must make the most of your time and we must make the most of you. You must remain with us while the ship is in port. Not a word now! I will take no denial.”
Nor did he, and, indeed, it required very little persuasion to induce the voyagers to share Mr. Burney’s hospitality. The intervening days were spent delightfully in sight-seeing, and it was with real regret they bade the good people adieu and returned to the ship.
For two weeks they were blessed with fine weather and a fair wind.
Then, when the moon was at the full, there were indications of a change. The wind gradually died away, or rose and blew in fitful puffs, and sank again. The ship, with all her canvas spread whenever it could catch the faintest breeze, made little or no progress. The weather grew intolerably hot and oppressive. The sun blazed down from a cloudless sky with consuming fierceness. The ladies were driven from the deck to seek shelter from the burning heat in the deep shades of the cabin, where they remained all day, or at least while the sun was above the horizon. After sunset they ventured upon deck to seek a breath of fresh air, which they very seldom found even there, for the atmosphere seemed oppressed with some deadly element that made it almost unfit for inhalation. And even the reflected light of the moon seemed to be reflected heat as well, and Mrs. Breton declared it looked as hot, and felt as hot, as ever the sun did in her own native clime.
The crisis came; the wind fell lower and still lower; and then the fitful puffs that had served to carry the ship forward a knot or two an hour, ceased altogether; the sea sank; and the ship lay like a log upon the glassy sea, under the burning sky.
Day and night for nearly a week this dead calm continued with most depressing monotony.
The heavens wore an ominous aspect. The sun had set, and every ray of his light had faded from the western horizon; yet the whole sky seemed to be illumined with supernatural light—a bronze-colored glare that made the moon and stars look pale and dim, and that was reflected by the sea, until the whole sphere seemed smouldering on the eve of bursting into a conflagration; while ever, at short intervals, came that low, deep, distant sigh, moan or sob, across the waters. As if in sympathetic answer to this mysterious sound of distress, the ship began to creak, groan and roll. And the whole circle of the sea began to boil up into a white foam.
The seamen also were very active and busy. Some were reefing the topsails; some were setting storm staysails; others were closing the portholes; and others again were securing the fastenings of the lifeboats.