le watch, that is to say, the watch which
extends from midnight to four o'clock in the morning.

When, upon being called by Marcel, the second mate, I went on deck to
relieve him, he informed me that the wind had been steadily dropping all
through the first watch, and expressed a fear that we were about to lose
it altogether. This did not in the least surprise me, for we were now
at about our lowest parallel, and on the border at least of, if not
actually within, the belt of practically perpetual calms that exists
about the Line, which are the sources of so much delay, vexation, and
hard work to the mariner. That the wind had dropped very considerably
since I had turned in was evident to me even before I reached the deck,
for, upon turning out of my bunk to dress after being called, I had
immediately noticed that the ship was almost upon an even keel, while
the inert "sloppy" sound of the water alongside that reached my ears
through the open port of my cabin told me that we were sailing but
slowly.

The night was intensely dark, for the moon was but one day old, and had
only barely revealed herself as a thin line of faint pearl in the
evening sky for about half an hour before she followed the sun beneath
the horizon, there was not a star to be seen in the whole of the visible
firmament, and there was a feeling of hot, muggy dampness in the air
that made me shrewdly suspect the presence overhead of a pall of rain-
charged vapour, which would account for the opacity of the darkness
which hemmed us in and pressed down upon us from above.

As Marcel curtly bade me good-night and went below upon being relieved,
after giving me the course to be steered, and expressing his forebodings
concerning the weather, I walked aft, glanced into the binnacle, and
inquired of the helmsman whether the ship still held steerage-way, to
which he replied that she did, and that was about all, the man whom he
had relieved at eight bells having informed him that the log, when last
hove, had recorded a speed of barely two and a half knots. He also
volunteered the opinion that we were booked for a heavy downpour of rain
before long, significantly glancing at the same time at the oilskins and
sou'wester which he had brought aft with him.

As the time dragged slowly along the heat seemed steadily to grow more
oppressive, and the difficulty of obtaining a full breath greater; the
perspiration was streaming from every pore of my body, and I felt