“Beg pardon, sir,” said Tom Jecks.
“Yes, what is it? Your wound painful?”
“Tidy, sir; but that warn’t it. I was only going to say, look yonder.”
He pointed right away east, and, as we followed his finger with our eyes, they lit upon a sight which would have even made me, inexperienced as I was, think it was time to seek the shelter of some port. And that something unusual was going to happen, I knew directly from Mr Brooke’s way of standing up to shelter his eyes, and then, after gazing for some time in one direction, he turned in that of the great Chinese port we had so lately left.
Chapter Forty.
Another Enemy.
For as I looked towards the horizon away to the east, a curious lurid glow spread upward half-way to the zenith, and for the moment I thought that in a short time we should see the full-moon come slowly up out of the sea. But a few moments’ reflection told me that we were long past the full-moon time, and that it would be the last quarter late on in the night. The sea, too, began to wear a singular aspect, and great frothy clouds were gathering rapidly in the south. And even as I looked there was a peculiar moaning sigh, as if a great wind were passing over us at a great height, though the sea was only just pleasantly rippled, and a gentle breeze was sweeping us rapidly along and away from the great junk, which now seemed hazy and distant, while those we had watched so long were quite out of sight.
“Feel cold?” said Mr Brooke quietly. “I ought to have told you to take off and wring out your clothes.”