Due South

It took them along five hundred miles, silently and with the speed of a dream. Then it ceased.

The ocean and the air stood still. The sky above stood solid like a great pale blue dome; just where it met the water line of the far horizon a delicate tracery of cloud draped the entire round of the sky.

I have said that the ocean stood still as well as the air: to the eye it was so, for the swell under-running the glitter on its surface was so even, so equable, and so rhythmical, that the surface seemed not in motion. Occasionally a dimple broke the surface, and strips of dark sea-weed floated by, showing up the green; dim things rose to the surface and, guessing the presence of man, sank slowly and dissolved from sight.

Two days, never to be recovered, passed, and still the calm continued.

On the morning of the third day it breezed up from the nor'-nor'west, and they continued their course, a cloud of canvas, every sail drawing, and the music of the ripple under the forefoot.

Captain Stannistreet was a genius in his profession; he could get more speed out of a schooner than any other man afloat, and carry more canvas without losing a stick. He was also, fortunately for Lestrange, a man of refinement and education, and what was better still, understanding.

They were pacing the deck one afternoon, when Lestrange, who was walking with his hands behind him, and his eyes counting the brown dowels in the cream-white planking, broke silence.