However, at two p.m. on the afternoon of the sixth day, that is to say,
when we were sixty-six days out, John Steadiman who had gone aloft, sang
out from the top, that the sea was clear ahead. Before four p.m. a
strong breeze springing up right astern, we were in open water at sunset.
The breeze then freshening into half a gale of wind, and the Golden Mary
being a very fast sailer, we went before the wind merrily, all night.
I had thought it impossible that it could be darker than it had been,
until the sun, moon, and stars should fall out of the Heavens, and Time
should be destroyed; but, it had been next to light, in comparison with
what it was now. The darkness was so profound, that looking into it was
painful and oppressive--like looking, without a ray of light, into a
dense black bandage put as close before the eyes as it could be, without
touching them. I doubled the look-out, and John and I stood in the bow
side-by-side, never leaving it all night. Yet I should no more have
known that he was near me when he was silent, without putting out my arm
and touching him, than I should if he had turned in and been fast asleep
below.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30