"'Tis enough to make one believe he was not far out when he talked of the ill-luck he expected from speaking a craft that had sighted Vanderdecken," said he, very uneasily, which made me see how strong was the blow his nerves had received; and running his eyes restlessly over the water here and there, as I might tell by the dim sparkle the faint moon-haze kindled in them. "Oh, but," he continued, as if dashing aside his fancies, "the mere circumstance of his being so superstitious ought to explain the act. I have often thought there was a vein of madness in him."
"I never questioned that," I replied.
"'Tis an ugly-looking night," said he, with a little tremble running through him, "there is some menace of foul weather. We shall lose this faint air presently." He shivered again and said, "Such a sight as that below is enough to make a Hell of a night of midsummer beauty! It is the suddenness of it that seizes upon the imagination. Why, d'ye know, Fenton, I'd give a handful of guineas, poor as I am, for a rousing gale—anything to blow my mind to its bearings, for here's a sort of business," looking aloft, "that's fit to suffocate the heart in your breast."
Such words in so plain and literal a man made me perceive how violently he had been wrenched. I begged his leave to go below and fetch him a glass of liquor.
"No, no," said he, "not yet, anyhow. I must speak to those fellows there."
Saying which he walked a little distance forward, calling for the boatswain.
On that officer answering, he said, "Are all hands on deck?"
"I believe most of the crew are on deck, sir," replied the boatswain.
"Pipe all hands," said Mr. Hall.
The clear keen whistling rose shrill to the sails and made as blythe a sound as could have been devised for the cheering of us up. The men gathered quickly, some lanthorns were fetched, and in the light of them stood the crew near to the round-house. A strange sight it was; the shining went no higher than half-way up the mainsail that hung steady with its own weight, and as much of it as was thus illuminated showed like cloth of gold pale in the dusk; above was mere shadow, the round-top like a drop of ink upon the face of the darkness, the sails of so weak a hue they seemed as though in the act of dissolving and vanishing away; the crowd of faces were all pale and their eyes full of gleaming; the shadows crawled at our feet, and, with the total concealment of the moon at this time, a deeper shade fell upon the sea and our ship, and the delicate rippling of the water alongside seemed to stir upon our ears in a tinkling as from out of the middle air.