For a moment the succession of silky undulations ran on innocently.  I saw each of them swell up the misty line of the horizon, far, far away beyond the derelict brig, and the next moment, with a slight friendly toss of our boat, it had passed under us and was gone.  The lulling cadence of the rise and fall, the invariable gentleness of this irresistible force, the great charm of the deep waters, warmed my breast deliciously, like the subtle poison of a love-potion.  But all this lasted only a few soothing seconds before I jumped up too, making the boat roll like the veriest landlubber.

Something startling, mysterious, hastily confused, was taking place.  I watched it with incredulous and fascinated awe, as one watches the confused, swift movements of some deed of violence done in the dark.  As if at a given signal, the run of the smooth undulations seemed checked suddenly around the brig.  By a strange optical delusion the whole sea appeared to rise upon her in one overwhelming heave of its silky surface, where in one spot a smother of foam broke out ferociously.  And then the effort subsided.  It was all over, and the smooth swell ran on as before from the horizon in uninterrupted cadence of motion, passing under us with a slight friendly toss of our boat.  Far away, where the brig had been, an angry white stain undulating on the surface of steely-gray waters, shot with gleams of green, diminished swiftly, without a hiss, like a patch of pure snow melting in the sun.  And the great stillness after this initiation into the sea’s implacable hate seemed full of dread thoughts and shadows of disaster.

“Gone!” ejaculated from the depths of his chest my bowman in a final tone.  He spat in his hands, and took a better grip on his oar.  The captain of the brig lowered his rigid arm slowly, and looked at our faces in a solemnly conscious silence, which called upon us to share in his simple-minded, marvelling awe.  All at once he sat down by my side, and leaned forward earnestly at my boat’s crew, who, swinging together in a long, easy stroke, kept their eyes fixed upon him faithfully.

“No ship could have done so well,” he addressed them firmly, after a moment of strained silence, during which he seemed with trembling lips to seek for words fit to bear such high testimony.  “She was small, but she was good.  I had no anxiety.  She was strong.  Last voyage I had my wife and two children in her.  No other ship could have stood so long the weather she had to live through for days and days before we got dismasted a fortnight ago.  She was fairly worn out, and that’s all.  You may believe me.  She lasted under us for days and days, but she could not last for ever.  It was long enough.  I am glad it is over.  No better ship was ever left to sink at sea on such a day as this.”