It was now late in the afternoon of this, our sixty-third day out of port; and, as the sun sank to rest in the west, away in the east, according to our position in the boat, there was another illumination on the horizon.
It was that caused by the burning ship. But it did not last so long: the fire of coals and wood could not vie with that of the celestial orb.
We could still see the blazing hull, as we rose every now and then on the crest of the rollers; while, when we could not perceive it from the subsidence of the waves under the boat’s keel, making us sink down, a pillar of smoke, floating in the air high above the Esmeralda in a long fan-like trail, and stretching out to where sky and sea met in the extreme distance, told us where she was without any fear of mistake.
Soon after we had quitted the vessel the mainmast, when half consumed, tumbled over the side; and, presently, the burning mizzen, which had been standing up for some time like a tall fiery pole, disappeared in a shower of sparks.
The end was not far off now.
As we rose on the send of the next sea, Captain Billings, by whose side I was sitting in the stern-sheets of the long-boat, grasped my arm.
“Look!” he said, half turning round and pointing to where the burning ship had last been seen.
She was gone!
The smoke still hung in the air in the distance, like a funeral pall; but the wind was now rapidly dispersing it to leeward, there being no further supply of the columns of cloud-like vapour that had originally composed it.
Soon, too, the smoke had completely disappeared, and the horizon was a blank.