Читать книгу Edith Percival. A Novel онлайн

15 страница из 61

And Gus seated himself on the quarter-rail, and leisurely lit a cigar.

An hour or two passed away in silence. The sun was setting, but the heat was still intense. Fred lay gazing idly into the ship's wake; Gus puffed away, and thought of Nell; but the heat had rendered both too languid to talk. Suddenly a hand was laid on his arm; and looking up, Gus beheld old Jack.

"Look now, sir," said the old man, pointing to the sky. Absorbed in his own reflections, the young man had totally forgotten the prediction of the old sailor. As he glanced up at the sky, he involuntarily uttered an exclamation of surprise at the sight which met his eye.

As far as he could see, in every direction, a huge black pall of intense darkness covered the face of the heavens. A lurid, crimson line of fire in the west showed where the sun had sank below the horizon, and was reflected like a thin stream of blood on the sea. Faint puffs of wind, from what quarter of the heavens no man could tell, at intervals sighed through the rigging, only to be followed by an ominous calm, more profound than before. The ship lay rolling heavily on the black, glassy billows, rising and falling like a dull, heavy log. A gloom like that of midnight was gathering over sea and sky—the dismal, ominous silence involuntarily made the boldest catch his breath quick and short, and filled each heart with a nameless awe, as they stood in silent expectation of what was to follow this dead calm of Nature, as she paused to take breath before the hurricane of her wrath burst in its full force.