At five o’clock the wind was south-east; a fresh breeze, with a lively sea and a cloudy sky. The wind being aft, the ship sailed on an even keel, to the great comfort of the passengers, who found the inclined decks intolerable.
From the aspect of the sea, it was evident that the ship had got into water which had not been touched by the gale of the morning—of such narrow proportions sometimes are the tempests which sweep the ocean. Away northwards, whither the clouds were rolling, there loomed a long, low, smoke-coloured bank of cloud or fog, so exactly resembling a coast seen from a distance that the passengers were deceived, and some of them called out that yonder was land!
“Tell us now, captain,” cried Mrs. Ashton; “it is land, isn’t it?”
“Why, madam,” rejoined the captain, “for anything I can tell, it may be Laputa.”
“Or Utopia,” suggested the General, “the land of idealisms and paradisaical institutions.”
Mrs. Ashton laughed, seeing the joke, but Mr. St. Aubyn, conceiving that they were talking of real countries, proposed that the captain should head the vessel for the shore.
“No, no! too far out of my course,” answered the skipper, with a wise shake of the head. “It would make a Flying Dutchman of the ship were we once to set to work to reach that land.”
“If I really thought it Utopia,” said the General, stroking his moustache, “I would beg you to land me at once, so eager am I to witness the condition of a people living under a form of government the like of which, for wisdom, humanity, and availability, is not to be met with in any other part of the world. But it may be Laputa, as you suggested.”
“Or Lilliput,” said Mr. Holland; whereupon the actor, perceiving that a joke was playing at his expense, scowled dramatically at the bank of cloud, and muttered, that, for his part, when he asked a civil question he usually looked for a truthful answer.