A bugle-call suddenly, brisk and joyful: the summons to "wash deck!"
The bugle sounded a little thin, a little silvery, in the formidable bellowing of the wind.
To wash the deck when the seas were breaking over it might seem a somewhat senseless operation to people who live on land. But we found nothing very extraordinary in it; it was done every morning, without fail and in all circumstances; it is one of the primordial rules of life at sea. And Yves left me saying, as if it was the most natural thing in the world:
"I must be off to my washing station."
Nevertheless the bugle had sinned by excess of zeal, and sounded without order, at its usual hour; for this morning the deck was not to be washed.
One felt that things were more manageable, as Yves had said; the movements were longer, more regular, more like the rollings of the swell. The sea was less angry, and the deep, heavy-sounding concussions were less frequent.
And then it was day—a vile day, it is true, with a strange livid yellowness, but day nevertheless, less sinister than the night.
Our hour, it seemed, had not yet come, for on the second day following we ran into calm water, in a port in China, at Hong Kong.
[CHAPTER XXX]
September, 1877.