The afternoon passed and the evening came, and when Captain Regnier descended from the deck to eat his supper he told his nephew, who had hidden himself in his berth during the afternoon, that the weather was moderating, and that, though he expected the night would be very dark, the wind would enable him to make sail. It befel as he had predicted. By seven o’clock the wind was no more than what sailors would term a moderate breeze, and the sea was fast going down, though at this hour the brig was still plunging heavily. It was pitch dark, however, on deck. When the mate Hénin came into the cabin to fetch a warm coat to keep his watch in, or, in other words, to wear whilst he took charge of the brig from eight o’clock until some late hour of the night, he addressed a number of sentences with great vehemence and impetuosity to the young Frenchman, who, on the mate withdrawing, informed me that Hénin declared that in twenty-eight years’ experience of the sea he had never remembered such blackness as was at this time upon the ocean. ‘Would you believe it, madame?’ cried Alphonse. ‘Hénin swears that the very foam which breaks close alongside the brick is not to be seen. What do you think of that?--I will go and look at the night for myself.’ He ascended the steps, but speedily returned. ‘It is raining,’ said he, ‘and it is cold too, I can tell you. And does Hénin call it black? Black is too weak a word. I will tell you what it is like: it is like the blackness of a stormy night, when you look at it after your eyes have been fearfully dazzled by a flash of lightning.’ All this while I remained extended upon the mattress upon the locker, covered by mate Hénin’s cloak, and with head pillowed on the rude bolster that had been withdrawn from my sleeping-shelf. Soon after the mate had gone on deck, Captain Regnier came down the stairs. He took his seat at the table under the lamp, and Alphonse produced a box of dominos. The captain, who on a previous occasion had learnt that I did not object to the smell of tobacco, filled a strange pipe formed of a great Turk’s head and a long curved stem, and smoked. He likewise put his hand into an adjacent locker and mixed himself a tumbler of white liquor which, that it might not upset, he placed upon a small tray that was oscillating above the table. The two men then played with singular gravity, the fat man smoking with stolid deliberation, whilst the young man watched the game with impassioned intentness.