CHAPTER V.
There fell upon us a dead calm. The heat was insufferable; the sky was too blue to be looked at; the sea too dazzling to be gazed on; the sun too scorching to be endured. We turned night into day, without mending matters much. Gatty ran about, hot and panting, searching for a cool hole, while she declared that the ship was a great pie, which the sun had undertaken to bake, and that we were all the unfortunate pigeons destined to be stewed therein. "Then," said the matter-of-fact little Winny, "we must put all our feet together, and stick them up in the middle." One day, when we happened to be in that indescribable state—a sort of half consciousness of what was passing around—scarcely knowing whether we were dreaming or waking, we heard a knock at the door, and the hot but smiling face of our captain shewed itself. He was immediately assailed with innumerable questions. Was the heat going? Was the wind rising? When were we to go on? Why did he not whistle for a breeze? Where could we get out of the way of the sun? Was it possible to get into a shade? Could he give us anything to cool us? What would happen if we all went on being baked in this manner? In fact, the purport of his visit to the saloon at such an unusual hour was all but lost sight of in the midst of these queries when I asked him if anything was the matter. "I only wish to look at your barometer; something has happened to mine," was his reply. So amidst an uproar of young voices, with pullings, tuggings, and caresses, for he was a prodigious favourite, he accomplished his object. I was surprised to see such an expression of concern cross his countenance as he gazed at it, and questioning him thereon, he answered, "Why, Madam, I find both the barometers tell the same tale; therefore, what I imagined was owing to a fault in mine, I must now impute to some extraordinary change in the weather."
Gatty.—"I hope then it will be hard frost."
Felix.—"Or a storm, Gatty. I want the wind to blow, and the waves to be mountains high."
Lilly (yawning).—"I wish something would blow, and I wish I had two little slave girls to fan me as they do in India."
Zoë.—"I don't think I should; they would be so hot themselves, poor things, I should be quite sorry all the time."
Oscar.—"I vote for a hard frost, like Gatty, then we should have such splendid skating on the sea."
Serena.—"But, supposing (which I believe is no supposition, but a fact) that the sea freezes in waves, we could not then skate."
Gatty.—"Oh, don't talk any more of ice and frost, it makes one hotter still to think of the contrast."