At other times there were simply long bands which traversed the sky, gold on gold: the clouds of a bright and as if incandescent gold, on a Byzantine background of dull and tarnished gold. The sea below took on a certain shade of peacock blue with reflections of molten metal. Afterwards all this faded very quickly into deep transparencies, into shadowy colours to which it was not possible to give a name. And the nights which followed, even they were luminous; when everything slept in heavy immobility, in a silence of death, the stars appeared above more brilliant than in any other region of the world. And the sea also was illumined in its depths. There was a kind of immense diffused light in the waters. The slightest movements--of the ship in its slow progress, of the shark as it turned about in our wake--disclosed in the warm eddies lights like that of the glow-worm. And, besides, on the great phosphorescent mirror of the sea, there were thousands of fleeting flames; it was as if there were myriads of little lamps which lit themselves everywhere, burnt for a few seconds and then went out. These nights were aswoon with heat, full of phosphorus, and all this dimmed immensity was pregnant with light, and all these waters were replete with latent life in its rudimentary state as formerly the mournful waters of the primitive world. CHAPTER XII It was some days now since we had left behind us the tranquillities of the Equator, and we were proceeding slowly towards the south, driven by the south trade wind. One morning Yves entered my room full of business, in order to prepare his lines for catching birds: "We have seen," he said, "the first 'draught-boards' behind us." These "draught-boards" are birds of the open sea, near relatives of the sea-gull, and the most beautiful of all the tribe: snowy white, the plumage soft and silky, with a black draught-board finely designed on the wings. The first "draught-boards!" Their appearance reminds us of the distance we have travelled; it is a sign that we have left well behind us our northern hemisphere, and that we are approaching the cold regions which lie on the other side of the earth, in the far south. They were before their due time nevertheless, these "draught-boards"; for we were still in the blue zone of the trade winds. And all day long, and every day, and every night, was the same breeze, regular, warm, and exquisite to respire; and the same transparent sea, and the same little white fleecy clouds passing peacefully across the lofty heaven; and the same bands of flying fish rising up in foolish alarm with their long wet wings, and shining in the sun like birds of bluish steel. There were quantities of these flying-fish; and when it happened that one of them was foolish enough to alight on board, the topmen quickly cut off its wings and ate it.