Chapter 2

Next morning, at daylight, the Narcissus went to sea.

A slight haze blurred the horizon. Outside the harbour the measureless
expanse of smooth water lay sparkling like a floor of jewels, and as
empty as the sky. The short black tug gave a pluck to windward, in the
usual way, then let go the rope, and hovered for a moment on the quarter
with her engines stopped; while the slim, long hull of the ship moved
ahead slowly under lower topsails. The loose upper canvas blew out
in the breeze with soft round contours, resembling small white clouds
snared in the maze of ropes. Then the sheets were hauled home, the yards
hoisted, and the ship became a high and lonely pyramid, gliding, all
shining and white, through the sunlit mist. The tug turned short round
and went away towards the land. Twenty-six pairs of eyes watched her
low broad stern crawling languidly over the smooth swell between the two
paddle-wheels that turned fast, beating the water with fierce hurry. She
resembled an enormous and aquatic black beetle, surprised by the light,
overwhelmed by the sunshine, trying to escape with ineffectual effort
into the distant gloom of the land. She left a lingering smudge of smoke
on the sky, and two vanishing trails of foam on the water. On the place
where she had stopped a round black patch of soot remained, undulating
on the swell--an unclean mark of the creature's rest.

The Narcissus left alone, heading south, seemed to stand resplendent
and still upon the restless sea, under the moving sun. Flakes of foam
swept past her sides; the water struck her with flashing blows; the land
glided away slowly fading; a few birds screamed on motionless wings over
the swaying mastheads. But soon the land disappeared, the birds went
away; and to the west the pointed sail of an Arab dhow running for
Bombay, rose triangular and upright above the sharp edge of the horizon,
lingered and vanished like an illusion. Then the ship's wake, long and
straight, stretched itself out through a day of immense solitude. The
setting sun, burning on the level of the water, flamed crimson below
the blackness of heavy rain clouds. The sunset squall, coming up from
behind, dissolved itself into the short deluge of a hissing shower. It
left the ship glistening from trucks to water-line, and with darkened
sails. She ran easily before a fair monsoon, with her decks cleared
for the night; and, moving along with her, was heard the sustained and
monotonous swishing of the waves, mingled with the low whispers of men
mustered aft for the setting of watches; the short plaint of some block
aloft; or, now and then, a loud sigh of wind.

Mr. Baker, coming out of his cabin, called out the first name sharply
before closing the door behind him. He was going to