“Are you going to try that, sir?” he stammered out incredulously.
I took no notice of him and raised my tone just enough to be heard by the helmsman.
“Keep her good full.”
“Good full, sir.”
The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world was silent. The strain of watching the dark loom of the land grow bigger and denser was too much for me. I had shut my eyes—because the ship must go closer. She must! The stillness was intolerable. Were we standing still?
When I opened my eyes the second view started my heart with a thump. The black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right over the ship like a towering fragment of everlasting night. On that enormous mass of blackness there was not a gleam to be seen, not a sound to be heard. It was gliding irresistibly towards us and yet seemed already within reach of the hand. I saw the vague figures of the watch grouped in the waist, gazing in awed silence.
“Are you going on, sir?” inquired an unsteady voice at my elbow.
I ignored it. I had to go on.
“Keep her full. Don’t check her way. That won’t do now,” I said warningly.
“I can’t see the sails very well,” the helmsman answered me, in strange, quavering tones.