“There!” he cried again, pointing with a terror stiffened arm into the forerigging.
I saw a flash of light—a glow like that of a big incandescent lamp bulb. It hung for fully thirty seconds to the very tip of one of the fore-topmast spars. Again, another flashed upon another point of the rigging. Bob Promise crouched by the wheel; he fairly groveled, while I could hear cries and groans from many of the hands on deck.
“What’s the matter with you? What is it?” I demanded, still fighting with the wabbling wheel alone; and I am afraid I kicked him. “Catch hold here!”
“Corpse lights!” groaned Bob, not even resenting my foot. “We’re all dead men. We’re doomed.”
Chapter VII
In Which Is Pictured a Race in Mid-Ocean
There was a snapping and crackling in the air over the laboring ship. It sounded as though the taut stays were giving way, one after another. For the moment, what Bob said about “corpse lights” I did not understand; I was mainly giving my attention to the wheel.
But the ship came to an even keel for a minute and I was able to hold her on her course, and get my breath. Then I beheld the strange lights shining here, there, and everywhere about the rigging, and I was amazed. Not that I was frightened, as Bob and some of the others of the watch appeared to be. The sailor is a very superstitious person; and let him tell it, there are enough strange things happen at sea to convince a most philosophical mind that there is a spirit world very, very close to our own mundane sphere. There’s a very thin veil between the two, and at times that veil is torn away.
But I knew in a minute that what Bob meant by “corpse lights” were corposant lights and were an electric display better known as “St. Elmo’s fire.” The lights were globular in shape, and about four inches in diameter. There were apparently a score of them all through the rigging, and they appeared at intervals of a minute, or two. The driving sleet could not hide them, and the fires illuminated the ship and the sea for some distance around her.
It certainly was a queer sight, and the brilliance of the corposant lights was very marked. I heard Mr. Barney shouting from his station: