Five minutes more, and the breeze will be down upon us.
The young men whistle openly to woo it; the old father thinks such a
superstition somewhat beneath both his years and his religion, but
cannot help pursing up his lips into a sly 'whe-eugh' when he has got
well forward out of sight.
* * * *
Five long minutes; there is a breath of air; a soft distant murmur;
the white horses curve their necks, and dive and vanish; and rise
again like snowy porpoises, nearer, and nearer, and nearer. Father
and sons are struggling with that raving, riotous, drunken squaresail
forward; while we haul away upon the main-sheet.
When will it come? It is dying back--sliding past us. 'Hope
deferred maketh the heart sick.' No, louder and nearer swells 'the
voice of many waters,' 'the countless laugh of ocean,' like the mirth
of ten thousand girls, before us, behind us, round us; and the oily
swell darkens into crisp velvet-green, till the air strikes us, and
heels us over; and leaping, plunging, thrashing our bows into the
seas, we spring away close-hauled upon the ever-freshening breeze,
while Claude is holding on by ropes and bulwarks, and some, whose
sea-legs have not yet forgot their craft, are swinging like a
pendulum as they pace the deck, enjoying, as the Norse vikings would
have called it, 'the gallop of the flying sea-horse, and the shiver
of her tawny wings.
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