The noise of the canvas on
high resembled the stirring of pinions, and the cheep of a block,
the grind of a parrel, helped the illusion, as though the sounds
were the voices of huge birds restlessly beating their pinions
aloft.
Presently the man at the wheel startled me with an observation.
I went to him, and he pointed upward with a long, shadowy arm. I
looked, and saw a corposant, as it is called at sea,--a St. Elmo's
fire,--burning at the end of the crossjack-yard. The yard lay
square, and the polished sea beneath gave back the reflection so
clearly that the mystic fire lay like a huge glow-worm on the black
mirror.
"There should be wind not far off," said the helmsman, in a subdued
voice; for few sailors can see one of these lights without a stirring
of their superstitious instincts, and this particular exhalation
hung close to us.
"I hope so," said I, "though I don't know where it's to come from."
As I spoke, the light vanished. I ran my eye over the yards,
expecting its reappearance; but it returned no more, and the sails
rose pale and phantom-like to the stars. I was in an odd humour,
and this was an apparition not to brighten one up.
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