132 



THE OPAL SEA 



Night on 

 I he North 

 Hea. 



shore it merely counts as a color streak. Far- 

 ther out everything disappears in a confusion 

 of spray, mist, and cloud. There is left only 

 a great gray veil — half water, half sky — that 

 the eye will not penetrate. 



Night on the North Sea or the Channel 

 (seen again from the ship's cross-trees) is even 

 more weird and unearthly; especially when 

 there are lightning flashes to illumine the yel- 

 low dunes of Holland or the white cliffs of 

 England. In that pale violet light the dunes 

 look like a greater and more tempestuous ocean, 

 the cliffs gleam like phosphorus, the sum- 

 mer hotels along the beach at Ostend rear into 

 enchanted castles, and the tawny sea seems a 

 vast waving desert of sand. And how that 

 wind, blowing perhaps straight up the Channel, 

 up the North Sea, wails through the rigging! 

 Wee-ooh ! wee-oooh ! Oooooh ! Ooooooh ! Then 

 a great dash of spray driving up through the 

 bowsprit-shrouds, over the crow's-nest, against 

 the spars; drenching everything above board, 

 accompanied by the heavy pounding of a wave 

 upon the turtleback — the water scurrying aft 

 over hatches and deck-houses, and finally disap- 

 pearing with a plunge over the rail into the dark 

 of the sea. 



Wild enough is a night of storm on the 



The drive 

 of the wind. 



