Stories by English Authors: the Sea | Page 3

running stunsail-booms out to airs that died in their
struggles to reach us. However, here was a draught at last, and the old
gurgling and moaning sounds of the breathless, sluggish swell washing
heavily like liquid lead to the sides were replaced by the tinkling noises
of waters parting at the bows with a pretty little seething of expiring
foam, and the hiss of exploding froth-bells. At eleven o'clock the light
breeze was still holding, and the ship was floating softly through the
dusk, the paring of moon swaying like a silver sickle over the port
mizzen topsail yard-arm, everything quiet along the decks, no light
save the sheen from the lamps in the binnacle, and nothing stirring but
the figure of a man on the forecastle pacing athwartships, and blotting
out at every step a handful of the stars which lay like dust on the
blackness, under the yawn of the forecourse. On a sudden a steamer's
lights showed on the starboard bow--a green beam, and a yellow one
above, with the water on fire beneath them, and sparks floating away
upon her coil of smoke, that made you think of the spangles of a falling
rocket. She went past swiftly, at no great distance from us. There was

not a moan in the hot breeze to disturb the wonderful ocean stillness,
and you almost thought you caught the beating of the iron heart in her,
and the curious monotonous songs which engines sing as they work.
She swept past like a phantom, running a line of illuminated windows
along, which resembled a row of street-lamps out in the darkness; and
as she came on to our quarter she struck seven bells (half-past eleven),
the rich metallic notes of which I clearly heard; and with the trembling
of the last stroke upon the ear her outline melted.
At that instant a peculiar thrill ran through the ship. It may be likened
to the trembling in a floor when a heavy waggon passes in the street
outside. It was over in a breath, but I could have sworn that it was not
my fancy. I walked aft to the wheel, and said to the man, "Did you
notice anything just now?"
"Seemed to me as if the vessel trembled like," he replied.
As he spoke the ship shook again, this time strongly. It was something
more than a shudder; the sensation was for all the world as though she
had scraped over a shoal of rock or shingle. There was a little clatter
below, a noise of broken glass. The watch, who had been dozing on
deck, sprang to their feet, and their ejaculations of surprise and fear
rolled in a growl among them. The captain ran out of the
companionway in his shirt and trousers.
"What was that, Mr. Balfour?" he bawled.
"Either the shock of an earthquake," said I, "or a whale sliding along
our keel."
"Get a cast of the lead! get a cast of the lead!" he shouted.
This was done to the full scope of the hand-line, without bottom, of
course. By this time the watch below had tumbled up, and all hands
were now on deck, staring aloft or over the side, sniffing, spitting,
muttering, and wondering what had happened.
"There's that bloomin' compreesant come again!" exclaimed a hoarse
voice; and, sure enough, a light similar to the one that had hung at the
crossjack yard-arm now floated upon the end of the upper
maintopsail-yard.
"The devil's abroad to-night!" exclaimed the captain. "There's sulphur
enough about," and he fell a-snuffling.
What followed might have made an infidel suppose so; for scarce were
the words out of his mouth when there happened an astonishing blast of

noise, as loud and violent as that of forty or fifty cannons fired off at
once, and out of the black sea no farther than a mile broad on the
starboard beam rose a pillar of fire, crimson as the light of the setting
sun and as dazzling too; it lived while you might have counted twenty,
but in that time it lighted up the sea for leagues and leagues, put out the
stars, and made the sky resemble a canopy of yellow satin; we on the
ship saw one another's faces as if by daylight; the shrouds and masts
and our own figures cast jet-black shadows on the deck; the whole ship
flashed out to that amazing radiance like a fabric sun-touched. The
column of fire then fattened and disappeared, and the night rolled down
upon our blinded eyes as black as thunder.
There was no noise--no hissing as of boiling water. If the furious report
that preceded the leap of the fire had rendered its coming terrible, its
extinction was made not less awful by the tomb-like stillness that