n Xanadu----" From
brightness the amassed cloud-bloom still increased to brightness: then
suddenly the flames turned to ember. Even now again a ghost of themselves
glowed, until all was gone, and Sirius entered upon his tenancy of
another glory, and Orion and Canopus, casting a hoar-frost glimmer ahead
of the riding ship.

Hosea agreed this was a remarkable sunset; then took me off to the
friendly tot and talk in his room. He loved to discuss all sorts of theory
in art and religion, of which he might have been, with a slight change
of circumstance in his boyhood, a student and enthusiast: meanwhile, the
sailor in him would be rummaging through the makings of a curiosity shop
which crowded his official desk, besides the manifests and ship's
articles--his watches, knives, coins and notes of twenty countries,
photographs of friends all over the world.

VIII

The flying-fishes could have dispensed with the _Bonadventure_. During
the night, sixteen or so had come aboard, to be seized by the apprentices
for breakfast; I saw with surprise how one had been driven and wedged
between the steam-pipes. In looks, when they were out of their element,
despite their large mild eyes, their long "wings" closed into a sort of
spur, being light spines webbed with a filmy skin, despite too the
purple-blue glowing from the dark back, they did not seem remarkable. But
under the hot and shining morning, where the _Bonadventure's_ sheering
bows alarmed the shoals into flight, they were seen more justly. In ones
and twos and crescents and troops they skimmed away, sometimes with their
dark backs and white undersides appearing as fishes, sometimes in the sun
nothing more than volleys of light-curved silvery darts. They turned in
the air at sharp angles without apparently losing their speed, which
was such that often one heard the water hiss as they entered it again.

The morning that they first came in numbers, it happened that the salt
fish for breakfast was relieved by reminiscences.

"You reminded me of Captain Shank just now, chief."

"Indeed--why?"

"When you ran your hand along the table for the treacle.... He used to
think the treacle was put aboard for him. He told the second mate off for
eating too much of it--said it wasn't really for his use. After that we
all began to eat the stuff like blazes."

"You must have had some funny captains in this line."

"He was. He'd come up sometimes on the bridge and sit down in the w