'Well, I've been out in worse weather than this,' exclaimed Abraham.
'Pity the breeze doesn't draw more north or south,' said I. 'The boat sails finely. A straight course for Teneriffe would soon be giving us a sight of the Peak.'
'Ye and the lady'll ha' seen enough, I allow, by this toime to make ye both want to get home,' said Abraham. 'Is there e'er a seafaring man who could tell of such a procession of smothering jobs all atreading on each other's heels? Fust, the loss of the Hayneen' [meaning the Anine], 'then the raft, then the foundering of the Airly Marn, then the feeding of Mussulmen with pork, then the skipper—as was a proper gentleman, tew—afalling in love, and afterwards being murdered; then that there fire, and now this here boat—and all for what? Not a blooming penny to come out of the whole boiling!' And his temper giving way, down went his cap again, and he jumped to his feet with a thirsty look astern; but fortunately by this time the barque was out of sight, otherwise there is no doubt we should have been regaled with another half-hour of 'longshore lamentation and invective.
The breeze held steady, and the boat swept through it as though she were in tow of a steamer. The sun sank, the western hectic perished, and over our heads was spread the high night of hovering silver with much meteoric dust sailing amid the luminaries; and in the south-east stood the moon, in whose light the fabric of the boat and her canvas looked as though formed of ivory. We had brought a bull's-eye lamp with us, and this we lighted that we might tell how to steer by a small compass which Abraham had taken from the Captain's cabin. We made as fair a meal as our little stock of provisions would yield, sitting in the moonshine eating and talking, dwelling much upon the incidents of the day, especially on the subtlety of the Malays, with occasional speculation on what yet lay before us; and again and again one after another of us would rise to see if there was anything in sight in the pale hazy blending of the ocean-rim with the sky, which the moon as it soared flooded with her light.
To recount the passage of those hours would be merely to retrace our steps in this narrative. It was a tedious course of dozing, of watching, of whispering. At times I would start with the conviction that it was a ship's light my eyes had fastened upon out in the silvery obscure; but never did it prove more than a star or some phosphorescent sparkling in the eye itself, as often happens in a gaze that is much strained and long vigilant.
It was some time before five o'clock in the morning that I was startled from what was more a trance of weariness than of restful slumber, by a shout.
'Here's something coming at last!' cried the hoarse voice of Abraham.
The moon was gone, but the starlight made the dark very clear and fine, and no sooner had I directed my eyes astern than I spied a steamer's lights. The triangle of red, green, and white seemed directly in our wake, and so light was the breeze, and so still the surface of the ocean, that the pulsing of the engines, with the respiratory splashing of the water from the exhaust-pipe, penetrated the ear as distinctly as the tick of a watch held close.
'Flash the bull's-eye, Jacob,' shouted Abraham, 'or she'll be a-cutting of us down.'
The fellow sprang into the stern-sheets and flourished the light.