A flag,
of which I could not see the device or the nation, hung heavily at the
stern, and looked as if it had fallen asleep. My curiosity began to
be singularly excited. The form of the vessel seemed not to be
permanent; but within a quarter of an hour, I was sure that I had seen
half a dozen different ships. As I gazed, I saw no more sails nor
masts, but a long range of oars, flashing like a golden fringe, or
straight and stiff, like the legs of a sea-monster.
"It is some bloated crab, or lobster, magnified by the mist," I said
to myself, complacently. But, at the same moment, there was a
concentrated flashing and blazing in one spot among the rigging, and
it was as if I saw a beatified ram, or, more truly, a sheep-skin,
splendid as the hair of Berenice.
"Is that the golden fleece?" I thought. "But, surely, Jason and the
Argonauts have gone home long since. Do people go on gold-fleecing
expeditions now?" I asked myself, in perplexity. "Can this be a
California steamer?"
How could I have thought it a steamer? Did I not see those sails,
"thin and sere?" Did I not feel the melancholy of that solitary bark?
It had a mystic aura; a boreal brilliancy shimmered in its wake, for
it was drifting seaward.
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