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

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At last, one evening, when a sticky haze rose sluggishly from the fermenting sea, peopling the immediate vicinity of the ship with fantastic shapes, Peter raised his voice in an astonishing volume of sound, commanding his attendants to carry him on deck. They instantly obeyed. Very tenderly and cautiously they bore him to the top-gallant forecastle, whence a clear view could be obtained all around. Through the hedge of mist the moon was rising, a vast blood-red disc, across the face of which passed in weird procession formless phantoms of indefinite and ever-varying suggestiveness. Overhead, the lustreless stars looked down wearily out of a sky that had paled from its deep azure to a neutral tint of green. From beneath, the foul effluvia ascended like the air of a charnel-house. Even the gleaming phosphorescence in the wake of the living things below glared pale and slow. The heavy silence around was only broken at long intervals by the melancholy wail of a weary sea-bird that feared to rest on the glairy sea. On board the voice of our ancient shipmate prattled on in tones scarcely human and in language unintelligible to any of us. As the moon, rising clear of the steaming vapours, resumed her normal appearance, she shot a pallid beam across us where, like a group of ghosts, we crouched around Peter’s prone form. When the cold ray touched his face it suddenly changed, and became beautiful, but only for a moment. Then the withered, toothless jaw dropped, the dim eyeballs settled in their sockets, and Peter passed from among us. Like a voice from heaven came the command, breaking the heavy stillness, “Square away the main-yard.” As men in a dream we obeyed. But the sweet breeze aroused us as it swept away the fœtid mist in reluctant rolls and eddies. A joyful sound like the musical murmur of a brooklet arose from beneath the forefoot as the good ship resumed her long-hindered journey through the reviving sea, and the long calm was over.