Chapter Nine.
The Cape of Storms.
The steady nor’-east wind that was driving the good ship so gallantly on her way when Captain Dinks put her about in order to rescue the Norwegian sailor, continued for days, accompanied by such magnificent weather, that the Nancy Bell was enabled to make very rapid progress down to those lower parallels it was necessary for her to reach before she could stretch forward, in a straight line eastward towards her port of destination.
“I guess, Cap,” said Mr Zachariah Lathrope, noticing the quick change of temperature in the air, day by day, as they left the tropics behind—the mornings and evenings becoming gradually colder—“she air making as straight tracks fur the south as them northern carpet-baggers did after our little onpleasantness, what you folks called the civil war in the States; when they used to rush down from Washington arter postmasterships and other sich like offices, which wer to be hed, they kinder thought, fur the asking! She air goin’ slick, and that’s a fact!”
“Yes,” replied the worthy captain, whose face beamed with good humour and satisfaction at the splendid run the vessel was making; “we are going ahead, working down our southing, and will soon be able to steer for New Zealand. She does walk along, and no mistake!” And then he would look aloft, perhaps, and give an order for a brace to be tautened here, or a sheet slackened there—the hours thus flying by in halcyon moments, as far as the wind and sea, and the course of the ship, and all on board were concerned—collectively and individually.
The nights in these southern latitudes were simply beautiful beyond compare.
The moon had no sooner died out than she revived again, as if gifted with perpetual youth—not an evening passing without her presence, sooner or later, on the scene—and appeared, too, to have more dignity of position and greater size than in the frigid north, ascending right up to the very zenith, instead of merely skirting the heavens, as she sometimes does here, and shining down from thence like a midnight sun in radiant splendour. The Scorpion, also, amongst the various constellations, was similarly promoted, occupying a place nearer the centre of the firmament; while the Southern Cross, quite a new acquaintance, followed by Castor and Pollux, began to descend towards the sea, becoming more diagonal as the days drew on than when originally observed, and finally vanishing from view head foremost.
As for the North Star, it had long since entirely disappeared; and only the horses in Charles’ Wain yet remained above the horizon towards that point of the compass.
To Kate Meldrum’s eyes, the sunsets were especially grand; for, as soon as the time came for the glorious orb of day to sink to rest in the golden west, a series of light amber-tinted clouds would arrange themselves all round the horizon, as if with a studied pictorial effect, like the stage grouping in what theatrical people term “a set piece;” and then, by degrees, these clouds would become tinged with the loveliest kaleidoscopic colours, all vividly bright—while the far-off heaven that lay between them was of the purest palest rose-hued gold, and the sky immediately above of a faint, ethereal, blueish, transparent green.