Jules Verne by Dick Sand - a Captain at Fifteen Page B

Dingo's presence more than ever. But Dick
Sand had observed that since the incident of the two letters, the
reciprocal antipathy between the man and the dog was increased. That
was truly inexplicable.
    On February 10th, the wind from the northeast, which, till then, had
always succeeded those long and overwhelming calms, during which the
"Pilgrim" was stationary, began to abate perceptibly. Captain Hull then
could hope that a change in the direction of the atmospheric currents
was going to take place. Perhaps the schooner would finally sail with
the wind. It was still only nineteen days since her departure from the
port of Auckland. The delay was not yet of much account, and, with a
favorable wind, the "Pilgrim," well rigged, would easily make up for
lost time. But several days must still elapse before the breezes would
blow right from the west.
    This part of the Pacific was always deserted. No vessel showed itself
in these parts. It was a latitude truly forsaken by navigators. The
whalers of the southern seas were not yet prepared to go beyond the
tropic. On the "Pilgrim," which peculiar circumstances had obliged to
leave the fishing grounds before the end of the season, they must not
expect to cross any ship bound for the same destination.
    As to the trans-pacific packet-boats, it has been already said that
they did not follow so high a parallel in their passages between
Australia and the American continent.
    However, even if the sea is deserted, one must not give up observing it
to the extreme limits of the horizon. Monotonous as it may appear to
heedless minds, it is none the less infinitely varied for him who knows
how to comprehend it. Its slightest changes charm the imagination of
one who feels the poetry of the ocean. A marine herb which floats up
and down on the waves, a branch of sargasso whose light track zebras,
the surface of the waters, and end of a board, whose history he would
wish to guess, he would need nothing more. Facing this infinite, the
mind is no longer stopped by anything. Imagination runs riot. Each of
those molecules of water, that evaporation is continually changing from
the sea to the sky, contains perhaps the secret of some catastrophe.
So, those are to be envied, whose inner consciousness knows how to
interrogate the mysteries of the ocean, those spirits who rise from its
moving surface to the heights of heaven.
    Besides, life always manifests itself above as well as below the seas.
The "Pilgrim's" passengers could see flights of birds excited in the
pursuit of the smallest fishes, birds which, before winter, fly from
the cold climate of the poles. And more than once, Dick Sand, a scholar
of Mrs. Weldon's in that branch as in others, gave proofs of marvelous
skill with the gun and pistol, in bringing down some of those
rapid-winged creatures.
    There were white petrels here; there, other petrels, whose wings were
embroidered with brown. Sometimes, also, companies of
damiers
passed,
or some of those penquins whose gait on land is so heavy and so
ridiculous. However, as Captain Hull remarked, these penquins, using
their stumps like true fins, can challenge the most rapid fishes in
swimming, to such an extent even, that sailors have often confounded
them with bonitoes.
    Higher, gigantic albatrosses beat the air with great strokes,
displaying an extent of ten feet between the extremities of their
wings, and then came to light on the surface of the waters, which they
searched with their beaks to get their food.
    All these scenes made a varied spectacle, that only souls closed to the
charms of nature would have found monotonous.
    That day Mrs. Weldon was walking aft on the "Pilgrim," when a rather
curious phenomenon attracted her attention. The waters of the sea had
become reddish quite suddenly. One might have believed that they had
just been stained with blood; and this inexplicable tinge extended as
far as the eye could reach.
    Dick Sand. was then with little Jack near Mrs. Weldon.
    "Dick," she said