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Updated: June 24, 2025
At noon, just after dinner, a few cat's-paws curdled the milky-blue whiteness of the glassy surface, and the water once more began to talk beneath the bow-sprit. It was very hot. The sun spun silently like a spinning brass discus over the mainmast. On the fo'c'sle head the Chinamen were asleep or smoking opium. It was Charlie's watch. Kitchell dozed in his hammock in the shadow of the mainsheet.
"We started as burglars, but we've finished by being made cat's-paws of by you, curse you! You didn't think we should find you out, did you?
We had been on deck perhaps half-an-hour, when a delicious coolness and freshness began by almost insensible degrees to pervade the hitherto intolerable closeness of the hot and enervating atmosphere, and, looking away to the westward, we saw, by the quick, flickering illumination of the lightning, a few transient cat's-paws playing here and there upon the surface of the water.
Cat's-paws of wind, as they call them, flew across the water here and there, ruffling its smooth surface, portending that a breeze would soon spring up, and the hopes of this chance rendered the captain undecided.
When, after a hurried meal, I again went on deck, the horizon away to the northward and eastward was darkening to a light air from that quarter, that came gently stealing along the glassy surface of the ocean, first in cat's-paws, then as a gentle breathing that caused the polished undulations to break into a tremor of laughing ripples, and finally into a light breeze, before which the surviving French frigate bore up with squared yards, leaving us unmolested.
"Yes, and hers," said Eddring, hesitatingly. "We are hardly through with all this yet." "It's been pretty bad down here," said the old planter. "Yes, and we know now how it happened and who was at the head of the trouble, and what cat's-paws were used in it all.
Now some cat's-paws came blowing over the ocean, rippling it up into mimic waves; now they disappeared, now again came on, till the whole surface was crisped over by the breeze. Our small triangular sail bulged out, sending the boat along about a couple of miles an hour. Uncle Paul was standing up, looking in the direction from which the wind came, when he exclaimed, "A sail! a sail!
"That must not stop us," observed the captain; "we must take the ship first, and the fort afterwards." At last a few cat's-paws were seen playing over the water. The dog-vanes blew out, and the breeze, fresh and pure from the ocean, began to blow. The anchor was quickly got up; and the ship, at first standing close-hauled to weather the point, glided on towards the main channel of the river.
There I saw a dark-blue line quickly advancing towards us. Even already, on either side, cat's-paws were to be seen just touching the surface, then vanishing again, once more to appear in a different direction as the light currents of air, precursors of the main body of the wind, touched the surface.
With breathless anxiety those on board stood watching the two bergs and the approaching breeze. At last it came. A few cat's-paws ruffled the surface of the sea, distending the sails for a moment, then leaving them flat and loose as before.
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