ng and grunted to himself
in the pauses of his thoughts. Forward, the look-out man, erect between
the flukes of the two anchors, hummed an endless tune, keeping his eyes
fixed dutifully ahead in a vacant stare. A multitude of stars coming out
into the clear night peopled the emptiness of the sky. They glittered,
as if alive above the sea; they surrounded the running ship on all
sides; more intense than the eyes of a staring crowd, and as inscrutable
as the souls of men.

The passage had begun, and the ship, a fragment detached from the earth,
went on lonely and swift like a small planet. Round her the abysses of
sky and sea met in an unattainable frontier. A great circular solitude
moved with her, ever changing and ever the same, always monotonous and
always imposing. Now and then another wandering white speck, burdened
with life, appeared far off--disappeared; intent on its own destiny.
The sun looked upon her all day, and every morning rose with a burning,
round stare of undying curiosity. She had her own future; she was alive
with the lives of those beings who trod her decks; like that earth which
had given her up to the sea, she had an intolerable load of regrets and
hopes. On her lived timid truth and audacious lies; and, like the earth,
she was unconscious, fair to see--and condemned by men to an ignoble
fate. The august loneliness of her path lent dignity to the sordid
inspiration of her pilgrimage. She drove foaming to the southward, as if
guided by the courage of a high endeavour. The smiling greatness of
the sea dwarfed the extent of time. The days raced after one another,
brilliant and quick like the flashes of a lighthouse, and the nights,
eventful and short, resembled fleeting dreams.

The men had shaken into their places, and the half-hourly voice of the
bells ruled their life of unceasing care. Night and day the head and
shoulders of a seaman could be seen aft by the wheel, outlined high
against sunshine or starlight, very steady above the stir of revolving
spokes. The faces changed, passing in rotation. Youthful faces, bearded
faces, dark faces: faces serene, or faces moody, but all akin with the
brotherhood of the sea; all with the same attentive expression of eyes,
carefully watching the compass or the sails. Captain Allistoun, serious,
and with an old red muffler round his throat, all day long pervaded the
poop. At night, many times he rose out of the darkness of the companion,
such as a phantom abov