It was in just such weather that I saw the
_Vesuvius_ ketch go to a place so deep, that her own mortar would not
have been able to have sent a bomb into the open air, had hands and fire
been there fit to let it off!"
"Ay; and it was in such a time that the _Greenlandman_ was cast upon the
Orkneys, in as flat a calm as ever lay on the sea."
"Gentlemen," said Wilder, with a peculiar and perhaps an ironical
emphasis on the word, "what would ye have? There is not a breath of air
stirring and the ship is naked to her topsails!"
It would have been difficult for either of the two malcontents to give a
very satisfactory answer to this question. Both were secretly goaded by
mysterious and superstitious apprehensions, that were powerfully aided by
the more real and intelligible aspect of the night; but neither had so
far forgotten his manhood, and his professional pride, as to lay bare the
full extent of his own weakness, at a moment when he was liable to be
called upon for the exhibition of qualities of a more positive and
determined character. The feeling that was uppermost betrayed itself in
the reply of Earing, though in an indirect and covert manner.
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