“The Sargasso Sea!” I repeated. “I never heard of that before.”
“No, I don’t suppose you have,” replied Captain Miles in answer to my implied question. “It is a name applied to a calm expanse of the ocean between the Gulf Stream and the Equatorial Current, and is called so from the Sargassum, or Gulf-weed, which is continually found floating there—that is, when the wind is not too strong, as now, to blow it elsewhere. You’ll see plenty of the stuff as soon as the gale lulls, which it must do now, I think, in a very few hours.”
“Are you going to carry on still before it, sir?” asked Mr Marline.
“Of course,” answered the captain. “The ship is sailing easily and not straining herself, as she would do if lying-to; and we can’t run into any harm following the same course till morning. I intend to work the gale in the same way as a friend of mine once treated a runaway horse. It first started off to please itself, and then he made it keep up its pace to please him; so, as the wind has chosen to blow us along at its own sweet will all this time, it shall now drive the ship at my pleasure. What do you say, Master Tom, eh?”
“I say it’s a very good plan, captain,” I replied laughing.
“Well, my boy, I’ll tell you of another good plan, and that is to go below and turn in, as I purpose doing. Mr Marline,” added the captain to the first mate, “please take the first watch. I’ll relieve you at midnight; I don’t think there’ll be any change before then.”
With these words, Captain Miles, who had been on deck almost continuously now for two days and nights, went down to the cabin to have a couple of hours of much-needed repose; and taking his hint as an order, good-humouredly as it was spoken, I followed him at once.
Nor was I anything loth either to go to my bunk; for I had eaten a hearty dinner which made me feel drowsy. After I had turned in, too, there being no excitement to keep me awake, and the ship being quite safe, there being now every prospect of the gale coming soon to an end, I slept like a top—Harry the steward having to wake me again next morning to tell me that breakfast was ready, and coming twice to shake my bunk before I would turn out.
When I subsequently went on deck, I could soon see that the weather had altered for the better.
Although the sea was still rough, the clouds had cleared away from the sky entirely, not a speck of hazy vapour being discernible anywhere, while the sun was shining down brightly and warmly, enlivening the whole scene around and making the ocean, in spite of its still rough condition, almost look pleasant; the white wreaths of spray, broken-off by the wind from the tops of the waves, glistening with the prismatic hues of the rainbow as they were tossed up in the air on clashing billow meeting billow.