By fine gradations, the airy veil of morning thinned in
substance as it rose--thinned, till there dawned through it in the first
rays of sunlight the tall white sails of a Schooner Yacht.
From stem to stern silence possessed the vessel--as silence possessed
the sea.
But one living creature was on deck--the man at the helm, dozing
peaceably with his arm over the useless tiller. Minute by minute the
light grew, and the heat grew with it; and still the helmsman slumbered,
the heavy sails hung noiseless, the quiet water lay sleeping against
the vessel's sides. The whole orb of the sun was visible above the
water-line, when the first sound pierced its way through the morning
silence. From far off over the shining white ocean, the cry of a
sea-bird reached the yacht on a sudden out of the last airy circles of
the waning mist.
The sleeper at the helm woke; looked up at the idle sails, and yawned
in sympathy with them; looked out at the sea on either side of him, and
shook his head obstinately at the superior obstinacy of the calm.
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