An Ocean Tragedy

It was pleasant to learn next morning that the breeze which had been slipping us nimbly through it since we had trimmed sail for our homeward bound run had not only blown steadi...

The dim hectic that was lingering in the atmosphere when we entered the hold was now gone; the evening had fallen on a sudden as dark as midnight: it was all as black as factory...

Right over the bows on either hand the sky had cleared since the early morning; the fairy drapery of linked, prismatic, shell-like cloud had lifted, leaving the sea-line a dark...

I woke from a deep sleep, and opened my eyes against the glare of the risen sun. Death must be like such sleep as that, thought I. I sat up and met Laura’s gaze fixed upon me. S...

Laura and her sister sat on one of the sailors’ chests that we had sent up; Johnson leaned on top of a flour or biscuit barrel that stood on end, with his eyes fixed up on the w...

On entering my berth I threw myself into my bunk and sat in it in such a despondent condition of mind as I had never before been sensible of. This, to be sure, signified no more...

The dinner was exquisitely cooked, and as perfectly ordered a repast as the most fastidious could devise or desire; but very little was said, mainly, I suspect, because our thou...

Our passage home was extraordinarily long. It took us seventy-five days to arrive at the English Channel from the latitude of the volcanic island. The captain thought himself un...

I was up and about a great deal during the night. It was not only that the heat murdered sleep; there was something so ominous in the profound stillness which fell upon our litt...

I lost my senses after I had been in the water a few minutes: whether through being nearly strangled by the foam which broke incessantly over me, or through being struck by some...

It was not to prove a gale, though it would have been hard to guess what lay behind that dirty jumble of white and livid terraces which had been stealthily creeping all the morn...

She fanned herself. As the mercury rises past a certain degree sentiment falls. Emotion lies north and south of the line, hardly on it unless in a black skin. How death-like was...

The surface of the island was so honeycombed that one dared not look elsewhere than downwards whilst walking, and so it was not until we had drawn close to the huge rock-like lu...

When I awoke the morning was streaming a windy light through the port-hole over my bunk. I lay a few minutes watching my coat and other suspended garments swinging against the b...

‘Wilfrid, see if our boat’s alongside, will you?’ I cried, anxious to get him out of the way and to correct as far as possible the unmistakable mood of madness that had come upo...

I hauled down the shawl from the masthead, carefully unbent, folded, and gave it to Miss Jennings, who stood with Wilfrid watching the Portuguese brig. We had hoisted in our boa...

I rose next morning shortly after seven, bathed and went to the cabin for a cup of coffee. I could see through the skylight that it was a fine day. The air showed a bright blue...

The time slipped by. Life is monotonous at sea, and, though the days seem to have speeded quickly past when one looks back, they appear to be crawling along on all-fours when on...

It was seven o’clock when I awoke. I at once rose, bathed, and went on deck, thinking, as I passed through the cabin and observed the brilliant effect of the sunshine streaming...

I entered and found Wilfrid in his bunk propped up on his elbow, his eyes looking twice their natural size with the intensity of his stare, and one long uncouth leg already flun...

This was an incident to give one a deal to think and talk about. Certainly little imaginable could be stranger than that we, being in chase of a fore-and-aft schooner yacht, sho...

Sir Wilfrid was coming to the gangway as I entered, leaving his companion, whom I at once understood to be Miss Laura Jennings, standing near the wheel. He grasped my hand, gazi...

The strong wind blew throughout the day and the yacht made a gallant run, floating buoyant in foam from one blue knoll to another, with nothing living outside our decks saving a...

A characteristic of Wilfrid’s mental feebleness was his inability to keep his attention long fixed. This symptom would be more or less acute according to the hold his trouble ha...

It was half-past ten o’clock at night, and I was in my lodgings in Bury Street, St. James, slippers on feet, a pipe of tobacco in my hand, seltzer and brandy at my elbow, and on...

Wilfrid saw them too in a flash. He slightly reeled, making a fierce grasp at some gear against the mainmast to steady himself. Distant as they were, one could see, nevertheless...

On the lee-bow was a dash of orange light, much less like the sails of a ship than a feather of vapour bronzed by a sunset and vanishing in the tail of a cloud.

After this, for a good many days nothing in any degree noteworthy happened. It seemed, indeed, as though whatever little there was to alarm or divert during this extraordinary v...

I happened to be alone on deck after dinner, having left Wilfrid at his diary and Miss Jennings in her cabin, where she had gone to make ready to join me, as she had said. The w...

Although Finn’s calculations showed very well upon the chart, it will not be supposed I could find anything in them upon which to ground that hope of falling in with the ‘Shark’...

The gale was followed by several days of true tropical weather: light airs before which our stem slided so softly as to leave the water unwrinkled; then pauses of utter stagnati...

It was a fresh sweet ocean morning, one of the fairest I remember; the wind, a tender fanning from the west, warm enough to make one fancy an odour and balm of the tropics in it...

Little of interest happened at the outset. There were but three of us for company; our ship was a small one, and the inner life of it a monotonous round of eating, drinking, smo...

Time was when I had been much thrown with my cousin. I had served in the Royal Navy for a few years, as I have said, but abandoned it on my inheriting a very comfortable little...