At the usual time two seamen, walking
noiselessly aft in their yachting shoes, rolled up in silence the
quarter-deck screens; and the coast, the shallows, the dark islets and
the snowy sandbanks uncovered thus day after day were seen once more
in their aspect of dumb watchfulness. The brig, swung end on in the
foreground, her squared yards crossing heavily the soaring symmetry of
the rigging, resembled a creature instinct with life, with the power of
springing into action lurking in the light grace of its repose.
A pair of stewards in white jackets with brass buttons appeared on deck
and began to flit about without a sound, laying the table for dinner on
the flat top of the cabin skylight. The sun, drifting away toward
other lands, toward other seas, toward other men; the sun, all red in a
cloudless sky raked the yacht with a parting salvo of crimson rays that
shattered themselves into sparks of fire upon the crystal and silver
of the dinner-service, put a short flame into the blades of knives, and
spread a rosy tint over the white of plates. A trail of purple, like a
smear of blood on a blue shield, lay over the sea.
On sitting down Mr. Travers alluded in a vexed tone to the necessity of
living on preserves, all the stock of fresh provisions for the passage
to Batavia having been already consumed.
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