I was awoke by the mate of the watch calling Mr Lanyard about half an hour before daylight.
"We see the commodore, sir, about two miles on the lee-beam," said Mr Marline, as he stuck his head into the cabin.
"Very well—I will be on deck presently—how is her head?"
"South-west, sir—but the wind is very light."
He retired—and Dick having rigged with an expedition unknown to all mankind, barring a sailor or a monkey, went on deck. A restless fit had overtaken me, so I soon followed him.
It was now four in the morning—there were clouds in the sky, but very little wind. In the east, all was clear—the morning star had already slipt her moorings, and was several degrees above the horizon, against which the rolling swell rose and sank as black as ink, except where the glorious planet cast a tiny wake on it, glittering in a small line of silver light; underneath, the glow of the advancing sun gradually tinged the sky and every shred of clouds with a crimson flush.
On the other hand, when we looked down to leeward, far in the steamy west, the declining moon hung over the dark sea pale and sickly, as a lamp whose oil had failed. She looked as if she would have dropped at once into the ocean, and the feeble wake she cast through the ascending fog was dull and cheerless. There, however, in the very centre of her half quenched radiance, lay the noble frigate, rolling heavily on the long seas, under her three topsails; now rising distinct and clear against the horizon on the ridge of the dark swell, and again sinking on the liquid hills until she disappeared, as if the ever heaving waters had swallowed her up. All overhead continued blue, and cold, and serene.
"Mr Marline, bear up, and run down to her."
"Ay, ay, sir."
The deadening splash and gushing sound of the felucca's counter, as it came surging down, while lying to, was soon, but gradually, exchanged for the rushing of the water and buzzing of the foam past a vessel rapidly cleaving the billows.