y was undoubtedly the first faint indication of the
approaching dawn; and he at once struck two strokes--the appointed
signal--upon the great mellow-toned bell which hung in the pilot-house.

The call was promptly answered by the appearance of his three fellow-
voyagers, who, abandoning whatever they had in hand, rushed helter-
skelter up the saloon staircase and into the pilot-house, anxious to
lose no scrap of that, to them, now novel sight, sunrise.

Rapidly yet imperceptibly the pale dawn stole upward into the sky; the
lustrous stars waxed dim before it, and one by one twinkled out of
sight; a faint roseate flush tinged the sky along the horizon,
brightened first into a rich orange, then into purest amber, the colours
being faintly reflected on the most distant edges of the vast cloud-bank
floating below; and at length, just as the hands of the clock marked
thirty-five minutes after one, an arrowy shaft of pure white light shot
upward into the sky, swiftly followed by another and another; and then,
with a dazzling flash of golden light, the upper edge of the sun's disc
rose slowly into view, soaring higher and higher until the whole of the
glorious luminary was revealed, whilst the rolling sea of cloud above
which the _Flying Fish_ skimmed glowed softly beneath his beams with
varying tints of the most exquisite opal.

This return to the realms of day had a curious effect upon the
travellers. They had not been conscious of the least depression of
spirits consequent upon their sojourn of more than a month in the region
of uninterrupted night, but it must have affected them, however
unconsciously, to no inconsiderable extent, for now, at the first
glimpse of sunshine, their spirits rose to an extravagant height; they
felt as though they had just effected their escape from some terrible
doom, and they were irresistibly impelled to shake hands with each
other, to exchange congratulations, and to talk all together, laughing
uproariously at even the feeblest attempt at jocularity.

The thoughts of the quartette were, however, speedily diverted by the
ever-imperturbable George, who now sounded the gong for luncheon, and
the whole party at once trundled below, leaving the ship to take care of
herself, as they very safely might, seeing that she was now travelling
down the "first" meridian, or that of Greenwich, with no land ahead
nearer than the Shetland Islands, more than a thousand miles distant.

After luncheon, howev