If wives could only keep their
husbands a little nauseated, I am confident they might be very sure of
their constancy.
But, somehow, the strange ship was gained, and I found myself among as
singular a company as I have ever seen. There were men of every
country, and costumes of all kinds. There was an indescribable
mistiness in the air, or a premature twilight, in which all the
figures looked ghostly and unreal. The ship was of a model such as I
had never seen, and the rigging had a musty odor, so that the whole
craft smelled like a ship-chandler's shop grown mouldy. The figures
glided rather than walked about, and I perceived a strong smell of
cabbage issuing from the hold.
But the most extraordinary thing of all was the sense of resistless
motion which possessed my mind the moment my foot struck the deck. I
could have sworn we were dashing through, the water at the rate of
twenty knots an hour. (Prue has a great, but a little ignorant,
admiration of my technical knowledge of nautical affairs and phrases.)
I looked aloft and saw the sails taut with a stiff breeze, and.
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