beyond depths
of azure beyond; and, as the wondering lookers gazed and the night
deepened, fresh myriads of stars appeared to come forth and swell the
heavenly phalanx, although the greater lights still maintained their
glittering superiority, Jupiter emitting an effulgence of radiant beams
from his throne at the zenith, while the Milky Way powdered the great
celestial dome with a smoke wreath of starlets that circled across the
firmament in crescent fashion, like a sort of triumphal arch of flashing
diamonds which the angels could tread in their missions from heaven to
earth, or the feet of those translated to the realms of the blest!

"Grand, ain't it?" repeated the skipper.

But Fritz said nothing; his thoughts went deeper than words.

A day or two after this, the north-east wind suddenly failed and a dead
calm set in, lasting for twenty-four hours. This circumstance did not
please Captain Brown much, for he hardly knew what to make of it;
however, after a day and night of stagnation, the breeze returned again,
although, in the interim of lull, it took it into its head to shift
round more to the southwards, causing the _Pilot's Bride_ to run close-
hauled.

On the evening before this change of wind, and while the calm yet
continued, the sea presented what seemed to Fritz--and Eric too, for he
had never seen such a sight before, although he had much better
acquaintance with the wonders of the deep than his brother--a most
extraordinary scene of phosphorescent display, the strange effect of it
being almost magical.

The sun had set early and the moon did not rise till late; but, as soon
as the orb of day had disappeared below water, the horizon all round
became nearly as black as ink, without any after-glow, as had invariably
been noticed at previous sunsets. The whole sky was dark and pitchy
like; only a few stars showing themselves momentarily for a while high
up towards the zenith, although they were soon hidden by the mantle of
sombre cloud that enveloped the heavens everywhere.

Meanwhile, the entire surface of the sea, in every direction as far as
their eyes could reach, seemed as if covered with a coating of frosted
silver; and, all around the ship, at the water-line, there appeared a
brilliant illumination, as if from a row of gas jets or like the
footlights in front of the stage of a theatre. Where the sea, too, was
broken into foam by the slight motion of the ship, it also gave out the
same appeara