Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/18

2 the other passengers were no better sailors than she. After a solitary dinner I went back up on deck to join my wife and look out across the foaming sea.

Immense waves, wild steeds of a wilder wind, charged and threw themselves upon the lunging hulk, causing it to quiver and heel to port, with the groans and plaints of an old rheumatic man. The white manes of the waves wreathed at times the after deck and streamed down the sides of the black, wet body. The wind tore through the rigging and rocked the life-boats in prophetic mockery over what it would do with them, once it were given a free hand on the open sea.

As Zofiette fell asleep for a moment, I lighted a cigarette and leaned over the rail, captivated by the wild abandon of the racing waves. Meanwhile two figures had appeared on deck. They stood apart from each other, observing the mad struggle between the sea and the ship and the swift coursings of the sky.

It was the middle of August, and the moon was full. Under its pale rays the sea scintillated with thousands of shafts and points of silvery light, ever changing, disappearing in a flash in the gulf of some dark trough only to reappear on the slopes and crest of a following wave. Everything was in a great, cyclonic whirl, in the midst of which one could feel the unyielding struggle of palpable and titanic forces that brooked no peace nor mild repose.

The slcy seemed also bent on joining the sea to add weirdness and an additional sense of struggle to the night, for there above we watched the never-ending battle between the forces of light and darkness. Tattered