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the south-east; toward sunset, on our third day out, however, we began
to notice signs of a change. The barometer had started to decline
shortly after noon; and as the afternoon advanced the breeze weakened,
so that from a speed of fourteen knots we dropped down to a bare five,
although we were under royals, had all our staysails set, and were
showing our whole flight of starboard studding sails as well, the wind
being about a point and a half abaft the beam. At the same time the
aspect of the sky underwent a subtle change. The clear, rich blue of
the vault became gradually obscured by a veil, at first scarcely
perceptible, of dirty, whitish-grey haze, from which, by the time of
sunset, every trace of blue had completely vanished.

Gradually, too, the sun became shorn of his rays, although there was no
perceptible diminution of heat, until at length when the great luminary
was upon the point of sinking below the horizon, he had changed into the
semblance of a huge, shapeless mass of molten copper hanging suspended
in the midst of an almost equally shapeless conglomeration of flame and
smoke. Then he slowly vanished from view; the flaming, smoky western
sky seemed to blaze up for a few moments into a still fiercer
conflagration, the hues deepened until they became a mingling of blood
and soot, when with startling suddenness they died out and an inky
blackness enveloped the ship. At the same time the small remains of the
wind died away, leaving the yacht rolling and lurching heavily upon a
sea that seemed to have no run in it, but heaved itself up into great
hummocks, only to subside again in the same purposeless manner.

It was drawing on toward the end of the first dog-watch, and as a matter
of fact I was off duty. But one never spends a dog-watch below in the
tropics if it can be avoided, and Kennedy and I had gone up on the poop
together to watch the sunset and discuss with Briscoe, the second mate,
the meaning of the portents. Kennedy had never before been in that part
of the world, but I had, and while he did not quite know what to make of
the aspect of the sky, I had already made up my mind pretty well
regarding what was in store for us, and had expressed my opinion as to
what we might expect. The first mate did not altogether agree with me,
and had proposed that we should refer the matter to Briscoe, who, like
myself, knew, or professed to know, the Indian Ocean pretty well. So up
we went; and presentl