She did not seem to hear him; her head had drooped, as though to a sudden engrossing thought, and her gaze rested upon something which her delicate fingers toyed with upon the table.
‘What very odd fancies you have, Louise,’ exclaimed Mrs. Radcliffe with a peck of her face at the girl’s handsome profile.
‘Rather a good subject for a descriptive article, Johnson,’ exclaimed Emmett aside with a drawl.
‘Or for a picture,’ answered Johnson; ‘better on canvas than on paper, I think; don’t you, Mr. Saunders? Calm sea—a moon up in the air—a wreck showing black against the white reflection under the planet—a haughty young lady’—here he softened his voice—‘inclining her head to the fore-hatch with her hand to her ear.—A first-class idea, Emmett. Seize it, or it may occur to another man.’
Miss Temple was speaking again, but the rude imbecile jabber of the journalist prevented me from hearing her; and bestowing a sea-blessing on his head under my breath, I left the table and went on deck.
There was every promise of a dead calm anon. The sea looked like ice in places with the bluish glint of the brine that softened the lines and curves betwixt the crawlings of the air into a tender contrast for the lustrous azure of the water where it was touched by the wind. It was a high, hot, cloudless morning, the topmost canvas, white as milk, looking dizzy up in the blue, as though it trembled in some sultry belt of atmosphere there. I went to the rail to view the wreck, and instantly made out on the other side of her the shining square of a sail—some ship on the rim of the horizon that had crawled into sight since six bells of the morning watch, and was now creeping down the smooth plain of sea with her yards braced somewhat forward, making a wind for herself out of what was scarce more than a catspaw to us, who had the thin fanning nearly over the stern.
Prance came up from the breakfast table with a telescope in his hand and stood by my side.
‘That ship down yonder grows,’ he exclaimed, pointing the glass and speaking with his eye at it; ‘there’ll be more air stirring down there than here; but little enough anywhere presently, though I tell you what, Mr Dugdale, there’s drop enough in the mercury to inspire one with hope.’
He brought the telescope to bear upon the hull, and was silent for a few moments, whilst I waited impatiently for him to make an end, wanting to look too.
‘I don’t think I can be mistaken,’ said he presently in a musing voice: ‘look you, Mr. Dugdale.’