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

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The skipper paced the poop with uncertain steps, hardly able to conceal his impatience at the dallying of the light airs that only made the great squares of canvas slam sullenly against the masts, and wear themselves thin. Longingly his eyes lingered on the western horizon, hungering for sign of the “Westerlies.” His eager gaze was at last rewarded by the vision of a sombre arch of lowering cloud, which slowly upreared its grim segment above the setting sun. The fitful south-easterly airs, dregs of the “Trades,” which in their feeble variableness had so sorely tried his patience, gradually sank like the last few breaths of some expiring monster, leaving the sea glassy and restful under the dark violet of the evening sky. Only a long, regular swell came rolling eastward in rhythmical march, its placid undulations swaying the huge vessel gently as the drowsy rocking of an infant’s cradle. But its indications were sufficiently precise to satisfy the skipper, who, after a peaceful pipe, retired early to rest, leaving orders to call him in the event of any sudden change. His manner, however, indicated that he expected nothing of the kind. After his departure the chief officer prowled restlessly about the quarterdeck, being a man to whom the stagnation of a calm was an unmitigated calamity. At present his only satisfaction lay in noting how steadily the celestial bridge astern grew in breadth and altitude, while at the same time the swell became deeper, longer, and more definite in its direction.