{"product_id":"2940013697560","title":"The Extraordinary Adventure of a Chief Mate","description":"I am Michael Balfour; I it was who fell overboard; and it is needless\u003cbr\u003efor me to say here that I was not drowned. The volcanic island was\u003cbr\u003eonly reported by one other ship, and the reason why will be read at\u003cbr\u003elarge in this account of my strange adventure and merciful\u003cbr\u003edeliverance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was the evening of the 23d of March, 1876. Our passage to the\u003cbr\u003eequator from Sydney had been good, but for three days we had been\u003cbr\u003ebothered with light head winds and calms, and since four o'clock this\u003cbr\u003eday the ocean had stretched in oil-smooth undulations to its margin,\u003cbr\u003ewith never a sigh of air to crispen its marvelous serenity into\u003cbr\u003eshadow. The courses were hauled up, the staysails down, the mizzen\u003cbr\u003ebrailed up; the canvas delicately beat the masts to the soft swing of\u003cbr\u003ethe tall spars, and sent a small rippling thunder through the still\u003cbr\u003eair, like a roll of drums heard at a distance. The heat was great; I\u003cbr\u003ehad never remembered a more biting sun. The pitch in the seams was\u003cbr\u003esoft as putty, the atmosphere was full of the smell of blistered\u003cbr\u003epaint, and it was like putting your hand on a red-hot stove to touch\u003cbr\u003ethe binnacle hood or grasp for an instant an iron belaying-pin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA sort of loathing comes into a man with a calm like this. \"The very\u003cbr\u003edeep did rot,\" says the poet; and you understood the fancy when you\u003cbr\u003emarked the blind heave of the swell to the sun standing in the midst\u003cbr\u003eof a sky of brass, with his wake under him sinking in a sinuous\u003cbr\u003edazzle, as though it was his fiery glance piercing to the green depths\u003cbr\u003ea thousand fathoms deep. It was hot enough to slacken the nerves and\u003cbr\u003egive the imagination a longer scope than sanity would have it ride by.\u003cbr\u003eThat was why, perhaps, I found something awful and forbidding in the\u003cbr\u003esunset, though at another time it might scarcely have detained my gaze\u003cbr\u003ea minute. But it is true, nevertheless, that others besides me gaped\u003cbr\u003eat the wonderful gushings of hot purple,--arrested whirlpools of\u003cbr\u003ecrimson haze, they looked,--in the heart of which the orb sat rayless,\u003cbr\u003eflooding the sea with blood under him, so magnificently fell was the\u003cbr\u003ehue, and flushing the sky with twenty dies of gold and orange, till,\u003cbr\u003ein the far east, the radiance fainted into the delicacy of pale amber.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yon's a sunset,\" said Captain Matthews, a North of England man, to\u003cbr\u003eme, \"to make a fellow think of the last day.\"","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152659136752,"sku":"2940013697560","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013697560","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}