Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/131



HE appearance of the clouds was becoming ominous. In the west as in the east the sky was now nearly covered with dark, angry clouds, which were rapidly advancing in the teeth of the wind. These contradictions are part of the wind's vagaries. The sea, which had been clothed in scales a moment before, now wore a skin,—for such is the nature of this aquatic monster. It was no longer a crocodile, it was a boa-constrictor. Its lead-coloured skin looked immensely thick, and was crossed by heavy wrinkles. Here and there, on its surface, bubbles of froth, like pustules, gathered and then burst. The foam was like leprosy. It was at this moment that the hooker, still seen from afar by the child, lighted her signal.

A quarter of an hour elapsed. The captain looked around for the doctor; he was no longer on deck. Directly the captain left him, the doctor bent his somewhat ungainly form and entered the cabin, where he sat down near the stove, on a block. He took a shagreen ink-bottle and a cordwain pocket-book from his pocket; extracted from the pocket-book a parchment folded four times, old, stained, and yellow; opened the sheet, took a pen out of his ink-case, laid the pocket-book flat on his knee and the parchment on the pocket-book, and by the rays of the lantern, which was lighting the cook, set to writing on the back of the parchment. Though