Page:The Great Secret.djvu/229

Rh moment illumined the whole ocean, sky and ship. While this preternatural glare lasted, he seemed to see the bodies of the murdered men clinging to the taffrail and watching with livid faces and staring eyes their murderers, and these apparitions made him morbid and low-spirited, for it seemed the sign of coming disaster.

Another day and night came without bringing the slightest puff of wind to them, while the sails hung limply against the masts.

The third day was the same, only closer and more depressing than before. The sun burned like a yellow flame above them, while the horizon was completely lost in the heat-haze, the sun going down redder and more angry-looking than ever.

Would it never come, that eagerly-desired gentle breeze? Were they doomed for their hellish ingratitude to lie there on that oily-looking ocean for ever, and rot like those dead men so close to them?

They all hung over the taffrail and watched that lurid sun set with the horror growing greater in their hearts, the sense of impending disaster heavy upon them. They could hardly breathe, for the space around them felt like a heated vacuum, while that crimson sun glared out from the now empurpled haze and spread a broad strip, like a river of gore along the ocean, from the sky to their blistered hull.

Suddenly the princess screamed shrilly, and pointed with one lean finger to the blood-red trail of lustre, while she covered her eyes with her other hand:—

"See!—oh, see!—the dead men!"