Chapter 16

They Are Becalmed

On the eighth day there was a calm.

It came on by night: so that waking at daybreak, and folding my arms
over the gunwale, I looked out upon a scene very hard to describe.
The sun was still beneath the horizon; perhaps not yet out of sight
from the plains of Paraguay. But the dawn was too strong for the
stars; which, one by one, had gone out, like waning lamps after a
ball.

Now, as the face of a mirror is a blank, only borrowing character
from what it reflects; so in a calm in the Tropics, a colorless sky
overhead, the ocean, upon its surface, hardly presents a sign of
existence. The deep blue is gone; and the glassy element lies
tranced; almost viewless as the air.

But that morning, the two gray firmaments of sky and water seemed
collapsed into a vague ellipsis. And alike, the Chamois seemed
drifting in the atmosphere as in the sea. Every thing was fused into
the calm: sky, air, water, and all. Not a fish was to be seen. The
silence was that of a vacuum. No vitality lurked in the air. And this
inert blending and brooding of all things seemed gray chaos in
conception.

This calm lasted four days and four nights; during which, but a few
cat's-paws of wind varied the scene. They were faint as the breath of
one dying.

At times the heat was intense. The heavens, at midday, glowing like
an ignited coal mine. Our skin curled up like lint; our vision became
dim; the brain dizzy.

To our consternation, the water in the breaker became
lukewarm, brackish, and slightly putrescent; notwithstanding we kept
our spare clothing piled upon the breaker, to shield it from the sun.
At last, Jarl enlarged the vent, carefully keeping it exposed. To
this precaution, doubtless, we owed more than we then thought. It was
now deemed wise to reduce our allowance of water to the smallest
modicum consistent with the present preservation of life; strangling
all desire for more.

Nor was this all. The upper planking of the boat began to warp; here
and there, cracking and splintering. But though we kept it moistened
with brine, one of the plank-ends started from its place; and the
sharp, sudden sound, breaking the scorching silence, caused us both
to spring to our feet. Instantly the sea burst in; but we made shift
to secure the rebellious plank with a cord, not having a nail; we
then bailed out the boat, nearly half full of water.

On the second day of the calm, we unshipped the mast, to prevent its
being pitched out by the occasional rolling of the vast smooth swells
now overtaking us. Leagues and leagues away, after its fierce raging,
some tempest must have been sending to us its last dying waves. For
as a pebble dropped into a pond ruffles it to its