After that,
there was nothing to be done, but to wait for the chance of the wind
dropping at sunset, and the sea going down afterwards, so as to enable
our weak crews to lay the two boats alongside of each other, without
undue risk--or, to put it plainer, without saddling ourselves with the
necessity for any extraordinary exertion of strength or skill. Both the
one and the other had now been starved out of us for days and days
together.
At sunset the wind suddenly dropped, but the sea, which had been running
high for so long a time past, took hours after that before it showed any
signs of getting to rest. The moon was shining, the sky was wonderfully
clear, and it could not have been, according to my calculations, far off
midnight, when the long, slow, regular swell of the calming ocean fairly
set in, and I took the responsibility of lessening the distance between
the Long-boat and ourselves.
It was, I dare say, a delusion of mine; but I thought I had never seen
the moon shine so white and ghastly anywhere, either on sea or on land,
as she shone that night while we were approaching our companions in
misery.
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