Thus did we somewhat wearily roll our way through the Atlantic parallels, fanned by a light north-east wind over the quarter, under a heaven of blue, with the sun in the midst of it splendidly shining, and a night-sky of airy indigo rich with stars from sea-line to sea-line. The flying-fish shot from the coppered sides of the Indiaman, but saving them and ourselves, the ocean was tenantless of life; we sighted no ship; no bird hovered near us; once only, when it was drawing near to midnight, I heard the sounds of a deep respiration off one or the other of the bows--the noise of some leviathan of the deep rising from the dark profound to blow his fountain under the stars; but there was no shadow of it to be seen nor break of white waters to indicate its neighbourhood. It was but a single sigh, deep and solemn, as though old ocean himself had delivered it out of his heart, and the glittering heights seemed to gather a deeper mystery from the mere note of it. CHAPTER XI A STRANGE SAIL It was a Friday morning. On going on deck before breakfast for a pump-bath in the ship’s head, I found as queer a look of weather all about as ever I had witnessed in my life. A troubled swell, but without much height or power, was running from the westwards, and the Indiaman rolled awkwardly upon it with much noise of beating canvas aloft and of straining spars. The water was of a dull olive tint, with an appearance of mud in it, as though some violent disturbance at bottom had lifted the ooze cloudily to the surface. It was hard to tell whether the sky was blue or slate, so thick, dusty, impervious was it, with here and there a dim outline of cloud, and patches, so to speak, of a kind of yellowish blue, where some belly of obscured vapour stooped lower than the rest; whilst, the whole sea-circle round, there hovered an immense grummet or ring of a dingy, sooty appearance, like to a line of smoke left by the funnels of steamers, and hanging in a brown cloud, leagues in length, in silent motionless weather on the rim of the waters of the English Channel. ‘Hallo, Mr. Smallridge,’ said I, as I stepped over the rail out of the head, addressing the boatswain, who was superintending the work of a couple of hands slung over the bow, ‘what have we yonder?’ and I sent my gaze at a sail I had now for the first time caught sight of that was hovering down upon our port quarter some two or three miles distant. ‘A brig, sir, I believe,’ he answered; ‘she was in sight much about the same place at daybreak. There’s been a little air of wind, but it’s failing, I doubt.’ ‘Making way for something to follow, I fancy?’ said I, casting a look round the horizon.