THESEA'SWAY 21 



seen before. That is, all save the portion of the sky that was 

 wrapped in gloom and from whence no light came except the 

 faint loom of the lighthouse many miles away. We stood watch 

 on and watch off, one man on deck while the other slept in the 

 cabin below. The first watch came and passed and the second, 

 and all this time the patch of gloom on the horizon spread, cut- 

 ting off the stars one by one, blotting out the milky way, and 

 drawing a dark cloak over the zenith. And by the time of the 

 third watch the entire firmament was drowned in gloom and 

 we moved only by the pale shine of the running Hghts and by 

 the faint gleam of the binnacle. All beyond the decks was 

 blackness, though a blackness that seemed alive if one could 

 judge by the myriad water sounds that came from off the sea's 

 surface. 



A certain heaviness seemed to lie over the ocean that night, 

 a heaviness that oppressed though it was cold on deck and the 

 wind was sharp. And this feeling of heaviness increased when, 

 toward the end of the third watch, the wind slackened and 

 hauled to another quarter. Still we did not feel alarmed but 

 continued on our way. Coleman was on deck and he had made 

 the necessary wheel and sheet adjustments for the change of 

 wind. It was then about two in the morning. At three o'clock 

 he came down in the cabin and shook me. 



"You had better come on deck," he said, "there is something 

 brewing." 



And there was. Even down in the cabin we could hear a new 

 tenor in the sounds coming off the water, a certain restlessness 

 that stirred above the wave whisperings. 



We glanced at the barometer. It was extremely low. The 

 lowest we had ever seen. Hurriedly we struggled into oilskins 

 and jackets and ascended to the deck. From out of the sea 

 were coming great smooth swells, much too large for the wind 

 that was blowing. We knew what that meant. 



