I ate voraciously, with sweat, as usual,
pouring down my eager brow, using knife or spoon in the right hand, but
never the Western fork, licking the plates clean in the Mohammedan
manner, and drinking pretty freely. Still I was tired, and went upon
deck, where I had the threadbare blue-velvet easy-chair with the broken
left arm before the wheel, and in it sat smoking cigar after cigar from
the Indian D box, half-asleep, yet conscious. The moon came up into a
pretty cloudless sky, and she was bright, but not bright enough to
out-shine the enlightened flight of the ocean, which that night was one
continuous swamp of Jack-o'-lantern phosphorescence, a wild but faint
luminosity mingled with stars and flashes of brilliance, the whole
trooping unanimously eastward, as if in haste with elfin momentous
purpose, a boundless congregation, in the sweep of a strong oceanic
current. I could hear it, in my slumbrous lassitude, struggling and
gurgling at the tied rudder, and making wet sloppy noises under the
sheer of the poop; and I was aware that the _Speranza_ was gliding along
pretty fast, drawn into that procession, probably at the rate of four to
six knots: but I did not care, knowing very well that no land was within
two hundred miles of my bows, for I was in longitude 173 deg.
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