The sunset was indeed a magnificent spectacle. The western sky seemed in flames. Deep purple lines of cloud barred the fiery splendour, and the heavens resembled a mighty furnace burning in a grate that half filled the sky. In the immediate neighbourhood of the sun the light round about was blood red, but on either hand were vast lovely spaces resembling lagoons of silver and gold; spikes of glory shot up to the zenith, and the countless lines of them resembled giant javelins of flame arrested in their flight, with their barbed ends glowing like golden stars in the dimly crimsoned blue over our ship’s mast-heads. The ship’s sails reflected the light, and she seemed to be clothed in cloth of gold. Her rigging and masts were veined with gold, and our glass and brass-work blazed with rubies. The swell of the sea was flowing from the west, and the distant glory came running to us from brow to brow, steeping in splendour to the ship and washing the side of her with liquid crimson light. The calm was as profound as ever it had been; there was not a breath of air to be felt save the eddying of draughts from the swinging of the lower sails. The sea floated in undulations of quicksilver into the east, where, on the dark-blue horizon, there hung a red gleam of sail, showing like a little tongue of fire in the far ocean recess. I placed a chair for Alice, but she refused to sit.
‘We will return to the cabin in a few minutes,’ she exclaimed, and she stood looking into the west, holding by her mother’s and my arm.
She had put on a veil, but she lifted it to look at the sun, and the western splendour lay full on her face as I gazed at her. Never so painfully thin and white had she appeared as she now did in this searching crimson glare. But an expression rested upon her countenance that entirely dominated all physical features of it; it was, indeed, to my mind then, and it still is as I think of it whilst I write, a revelation of angelic spiritual beauty. You would have thought her hallowed, empowered by Heaven to witness the invisible, for there was a look in her gaze, whilst she directed her sight into the west, that would have made you think she saw something beyond and behind those flaming gates of the sinking sun, that filled her soul with joy. Her expression was full of solemn delight, and her smile was like that which glorifies the face of one who, in dying, has beheld a vision of the Heaven of God and of the angels opening to him. Such a smile, I have read, sweetened the mouth of the poet Pope in his dying hour. Many who have stood beside the bed of death will know the entranced look.
Captain Ladmore, who was walking the deck close by, approached us.
‘That is a very noble sunset,’ said he.
‘Noble indeed!’ exclaimed Mrs. Lee. ‘I have seen many splendid sunsets in Newcastle, and there is no part of the world where you will witness grander sunsets, but never did I see such a sublime picture as yon.’
‘Sunsets of that sort are rare in the Tropics,’ said the captain. ‘It is noble, as I have said, but I do not like the look of it. It has a peculiar, smoky, thunderous appearance, which in plain English means change of weather.’
‘And I hope the change will soon come,’ said Mrs. Lee, looking from her daughter to Captain Ladmore, as though she would have him read her thoughts; ‘these prolonged calms are cruelly trying in this part of the world.’
‘God knows I do not love prolonged calms in any part of the world,’ said Captain Ladmore.
‘The captains who visited my husband used to have much to tell about the calms down here,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘They called them the Doldrums.’ Captain Ladmore smiled. ‘I assure you,’ she continued, ‘I would rather meet with a fierce hurricane, to drive us into cool weather at the risk of our lives, than suffer a continuance of such a calm as this.’