“You would, eh?” said Lance. “Very well, now go ahead—if you are not tired of talking—and tell me about the old fellow who found you, and the sort of life you led as a fisherman, and so on; it is all very interesting, I assure you; quite as much so as any of the novels in the saloon book-case.”
Bob accordingly went ahead, his companion occasionally interrupting him with a question; and when the story was finished Lance rose and stretched himself, saying as he turned to walk away—
“Thank you very much. Your story is so interesting that I think I shall make a few notes of it for the benefit of a literary friend of mine; so if you meet with it in print some day you must not be very much surprised.”
And as Bob saw him shortly afterwards, note-book in hand; and as this story actually is in print, it is to be presumed that Mr Lance Evelin really carried out his expressed intention.
On the day following this conversation the wind, which had been blowing steadily from the westward for some time, suddenly dropped; and by four bells in the afternoon watch it had fallen to a dead calm; the ship rolling like a log on the heavy swell. Not the faintest trace of cloud could be discerned in the stupendous vault which sprang in delicate carnation and primrose tints from the encircling horizon, passing through a multitude of subtle gradations of colour until it became at the zenith a broad expanse of clearest purest deepest blue. The atmosphere was transparent to an almost extraordinary degree, the slow-moving masses of swell rising sharply outlined to the very verge of the horizon, while the mast-heads of a far-distant ship stood out clear and well-defined, like two minute and delicately drawn thin lines on the pale primrose background of the sky.
Suddenly, however, a curious phenomenon occurred. A subtle but distinct and instantaneous change of colour took place, which made it seem as though the spectators were regarding the scene through tinted glass. All the brilliance and purity and beauty of the various hues had died out. The dazzling ultramarine of the zenith became indigo; the clear transparent hues of the horizon thickened and deepened to a leaden-grey; the sun gleamed aloft pallid and rayless, like a ghost of its former self; and the ocean, black and turbid, heaved restlessly, writhing as if in torture. An intense and unnatural silence, too, seemed suddenly to have fallen upon nature, enwrapping the scene as with a mantle, a silence in which the flap of the canvas, the pattering of the reef-points, the cheep of blocks, and the occasional clank of the rudder-chains, fell upon the ear with a sharpness which was positively painful.
The occupants of the Galatea’s deck glanced from one to another, dismayed; Violet Dudley’s startled whisper to Rex Fortescue of “What dreadful thing is about to happen?” being but the utterance of the thought which flashed through every brain.
Captain Staunton, turning to Mr Bowles, who was standing beside him, in low tones requested that trusty officer to keep a look-out for a minute or two; and then hurried down to the saloon to consult his barometer. He returned to the deck in less than a minute, his face wearing a look of anxiety and concern which was very rarely to be seen there.
“The glass has fallen a full inch within the last half-hour” he muttered, as he rejoined the mate.
Then in a louder tone of voice he added, “Call all hands, Mr Bowles, if you please, and shorten sail at once. Stow everything except the lower fore and main topsails and the fore-topmast stay-sail; I think we are going to have a change of weather.”