We stood transfixed as the phenomenon increased in intensity with the sea and wind.
All the men off duty came up and stared out at this enchanting spectacle, little heeding the seas which swept over the deck, soaking many of them through to the skin.
"It looks like fire, don't it? But blowed if it don't put yer pipe out," remarked our giant boatswain. A spurt had just extinguished his pipe for the third time, and he reluctantly decided to store the beloved stump carefully in his pocket.
But the "fire" grew wetter and wetter, and within half an hour the officers on duty and look-out stood once more alone up in the conning-tower.
When we got out of the Gulf Stream we had several days of stiff north-westerly winds and high seas, until, on the —— August, we ran into fine weather again.
On one of the following evenings the first officer on duty, Krapohl, was standing with Humke in the conning-tower scanning the horizon without ceasing, through the glasses, at a point where the pale sky seemed to merge into the sea without any observable boundary line.
"Light ahead," announced Humke suddenly.
"If you mean that star, I've noticed it already," the officer replied, calmly lowering his glasses.
"Wal, I dunno, but that there ain't no star, Herr Krapohl," the sailor replied, unabashed.
The two called out to me, and I came expectantly out of the tower, took the glasses and then laughed.