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Updated: June 23, 2025
The gleam of the sea-fire cast a blue glare on their faces, and they sat, and gaped, and glared, and yelled at the blast. Suddenly he awoke, and something cried, "Now thou art at home at Thjöttö, Jack!" And when he had come to himself a bit, he recognised where he was. He was lying over against the boulders near his boathouse at home.
The sky was clear as a bell, save for a few detached fleeces of trade-cloud that came swooping along at frequent intervals athwart the stars, so that there was plenty of light to see by; and it was as intoxicating as wine to merely stand abaft there, as I did, feeling the strong rush of the wind past me, and drinking in its invigorating freshness and coolness, as the deck heaved and plunged beneath my feet, and the bending masts swayed and reeled to and fro, the trucks sweeping long arcs among the dancing stars, and the wind piping high and shrill through the rigging, as the schooner leaped and plunged irresistibly forward, with a storm of spray flashing in over her weather cat-head and blowing aft as far as the mainmast at every buoyant upward leap of her to meet the sea, while a whole Niagara of hissing foam with an under-stratum of whirling clouds of lambent green sea-fire went swirling past the lee rail at a speed that made one giddy to look at.
The water, however, was highly phosphorescent, for alongside the felucca, and all round her as she rolled and pitched with a quick, jerky, uneasy motion, there extended a narrow band or cloud of faint greenish-blue sea-fire, in the midst of which flashed and glittered millions of tiny stars, interspersed here and there with less luminous patches, in the forms of rings and discs, that vanished and grew into view again at quick intervals in the most weird and uncanny manner.
It was a brilliantly fine night, or morning rather, for it was by this time past two o'clock a.m., the sky cloudless save for a small shred of thin, wool-like vapour skimming rapidly athwart the stars; the trade wind was blowing a moderate breeze, and the felucca was bruising along on an easy bowline with long, swinging plunges and soarings over the low, jet-black, glistening surges at a pace of some five and a half knots perhaps, with a perfect thunder of roaring, breaking seas under her bluff bows, and a belt of winking, sparkling sea-fire, a couple of fathoms wide, sweeping past her lee rail and swirling into the broad, short wake that she trailed behind her.
The creek in which the Nonsuch rode concealed was so completely land- locked that not a breath of air stirred within it as the boats left the ship's side, the surface of the water was mirror-like in its absolute placidity, and it was only when the men began to descend into the boats, rocking them more or less as they entered them, and so sent a few ripples undulating away across the glassy surface, or when some fish stirred in the depths below, that the phosphorescence latent in the black water awakened and sent forth little threads and evanescent gleams of sea-fire.
For there, in the very thickest of the swirling mass of clouds and discs and circles and stars of sea-fire, at a depth of perhaps six feet below the surface, was to be seen, brilliantly illuminated by its own movement through the water, the glowing shape of an enormous shark, fully twenty feet in length, keeping pace with the brig as steadily as if he were being towed by her.
I imagined that some misfortune had happened, and hastily throwing a few clothes on, hurried up to enjoy the astonishing spectacle of a "sea-fire." In the wake of the vessel I behold a streak of fire so strong that it would have been easy to read by its light; the water round the ship looked like a glowing stream of lava, and every wave, as it rose up, threw out sparks of fire.
Then the latch chopped and hopped till the door flew wide open, and in the doorway stood pretty Malfri and her mother and brothers. The sea-fire shone about them, and they were dripping with water. Their faces were pale and blue, and pinched about the corners of the mouth, as if they had just gone through their death agony.
Thence, with native audacity, but still with a reserve as characteristic, she flew into the midst of a group of mariners, the swarthy-cheeked wild men of the ocean, as the Indians were of the land; and they gazed wonderingly and admiringly at Pearl, as if a flake of the sea-foam had taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted with a soul of the sea-fire, that flashes beneath the prow in the night-time.
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