"
"Of course I love the sea; but if the sea loves me, it is the way a cat
loves the mouse."
"It is always putting up a hand to snatch you?"
"I suppose I am sent to Nineveh and persist in shipping for Tarshish. I
never enter a boat without an accident. The Belle Voyageuse met
shipwreck, and I on board. That was anticipated, though, by all the
world; for the night before we set sail,--it was a very murk, hot night,
--we were all called out to see the likeness of a large merchantman
transfigured in flames upon the sky,--spars and ropes and hull one net
and glare of fire."
"A mirage, probably, from some burning ship at sea."
"No, I would rather think it supernatural. Oh, it was frightful! Rather
superb, though, to think of such a spectral craft rising to warn us with
ghostly flames that the old Belle Voyageuse was riddled with rats!"
"Did it burn blue?" asked Mr. Raleigh.
"Oh, if you're going to make fun of me, I'll tell you nothing more!"
As she spoke, Capua, who had considered himself, during the many years
of wandering, both guiding and folding star to his master, came up, with
his eyes rolling fearfully in a lively expansion of countenance, and
muttered a few words in Mr.
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