“Now, my lord, listen.”
In a few moments the report of distant guns fell on the ear.
“Magic, by G—d!” each sailor exclaimed.
“How very strange,” the commander remarked.
“Bring up all the glasses, there,” he said, “and send up there Charles, and see where that firing comes from.”
Men immediately climbed the masts, and surveyed the horizon. No telescope of the man-of-war could discover whence came the report of the guns.
After this Appadocca was led back to his cabin, and sails were put on the huge vessel that now began to move majestically through the water.
There is a soft and sweet pleasure in sailing among the West India Islands. He who has not sailed in the Caribean sea, he who has not stood on the deck of his gliding vessel, and felt the cooling freshness of the trade winds, and seen the white winged birds plunge and rise in silent gracefulness, he who has not marked the shining dolphin in its playing course, and seen the transparent foam rise and melt before the scattering breeze, with the blue waters below, a high smiling sky above, and the rich uninterrupted beams of a fierce and powerful sun, gilding the scene, can scarcely say that he knows what nature is. For, he who has not seen the tropics has not seen her as she is in her most perfect form.
The ship held her course through the waters which, reflecting the rays of the sun, undulated like a sheet of molten silver, in which she seemed but the gathered dross floating on its surface. As she moved and broke that shining surface, the waters frothed for a time about her and then closed in smoothness again; while the sea birds playfully gathered in the silvery wake, the weeds which shone, like golden drops, in the pebbly bed of some clear and limped stream.