Читать книгу Idylls of the Sea, and Other Marine Sketches онлайн

19 страница из 42

I awoke streaming as if in the sudatorium of a Hammam, and after a careful rub down and complete change of rig, returned on deck to relieve my faithful partner. A small air from the African land was just lifting the lighter sails, and making a pleasant little ripple warble alongside. One of the Malagasy, a docile Betsimasaraka, came to the wheel, necessitating a careful watch over his well-meant but generally misdirected efforts on my part, since the duty was as yet strange to him. Still, I had leisure to take my fill of admiring wonder at the completely changed scene. We now sailed on a sea of silver, the moon being almost vertical. Out of that radiant level rose the dark battlements of the great island, its clear-cut outlines in sharp contrast to the pellucid sky. Far ahead loomed the misty mass of Pemba, and on the left a long, low streak of gloom, lit up here and there by gleaming stretches of shining sand, showed the proximity of Africa, ancient land of mystery. A subdued murmur, like that of a shell, but with an occasional swell therein, was rather suggested than heard, so unceasing was its deep monotone, the unresting roll of the Indian Ocean upon those lonely shores. At no great distance from us a snowy feather occasionally showed itself where the slumbering sea was momentarily ruffled in its regular roll by an outlying spur of coral close to the surface.