A couple of reefs were at once shaken out of the main-topsail, and a
sail made. By midnight the heavy sea had subsided into a deep, long,
rolling swell, still (strangely enough) coming from the south; but the
fresh westerly wind held the ship steady, and for the first time for
nearly a hundred hours we were able to move about the decks with
comparative comfort. Early the next morning the watch were set to wash
down and clear up the decks; and when I left my cabin at eight o'clock,
I found the weather bright and warm, with a blue sky shining among
heavy, white, April-looking clouds, and the ship making seven knots
under all plain sail. The decks were dry and comfortable, and the ship
had a habitable and civilized look, by reason of the row of clothes
hung by the seamen to dry on the forecastle.
It was half past nine o'clock, and I was standing near the taffrail
looking at a shoal of porpoises playing some hundreds of feet astern,
when the man who was steering asked me to look in the direction to
which he pointed--that was, a little to the right of the bowsprit--and
say if there was anything to be seen there; for he had caught sight of
something black upon the horizon twice, but could not detect it now.
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