About six bells (i.e., seven P.M.), this escape was followed by a dead calm, which lasted till midnight, and during that time we talked of nothing but the skill with which we had got the weathergage of that column of foam. As the sun set, with a rapidity peculiar to these latitudes, the brilliant tints he shed on sea and sky changed with equal speed from gold to saffron, from these to vivid purple, and from thence to the hue of sapphire.
The sensation of loneliness which the departure of the sun excites in the breast of a landsman at sea is peculiar; but this was soon chased from mine by the splendor of the rising moon, which changed the sapphire tints of sea and sky to liquid silver and the clearest blue.
Above, no cloud, nor even the tiniest shred of vapor was visible. Sea blended with sky at the horizon, and seemed to melt into each other, so that no line was traceable. Save a planet or two, twinkling with less light than usual, there seemed to be no stars in heaven, for the glory of the full-orbed moon eclipsed them all; her light fell brightly on the white sails of the Eugenie, and in it the features of our faces were distinct as at noon-day, and now it was the noon of night.
About twelve o'clock a fresh breeze sprung up, and the ship's course was resumed.
"By keeping the weathergage, and beyond the circle of the spout's attraction, we escaped without shipping a drop of water!" said Weston, for the twentieth time. "Let me see how you enter all this in the log, Hislop."
"It is no uncommon thing for a craft at sea to be deluged by a spout of fresh water, which the whirlwind has torn up from an inland lake," said Hislop; "and houses, far in-shore, have in the same fashion been deluged by salt water absorbed from the sea;—and hence the showers of dried herrings, of which we have heard so much at times. Now, Rodney, you will perhaps be surprised when I tell you, that it is the winds which produce a calm like that we have had tonight."
"The winds!" I reiterated, surprised at such a paradox from our theorist.
"Yes. The opposition of winds will at times produce a perfect calm, and then when rain falls it is always gentle and equable; but when clouds seem to move against the lower winds, or when streams of air denote a variety of the aerial current, and consequently the approach of rain——"
"What strange sound is that ahead, or at least, forward?" said Weston, interrupting Hislop, who would perhaps have theorized for an hour.
"It is Antonio, groaning in his sleep in the forecastle," said Ned Carleton, who was at the wheel.