There is nothing else for me to do. There is
nothing to be done with a sailing vessel rolling in a stark calm.
Then I feel a fan on my cheek, faint, so faint, that I can just
sense it ere it is gone. But another comes, and another, until a
real and just perceptible breeze is blowing. How the Snark's sails
manage to feel it is beyond me, but feel it they do, as she does as
well, for the compass card begins slowly to revolve in the binnacle.
In reality, it is not revolving at all. It is held by terrestrial
magnetism in one place, and it is the Snark that is revolving,
pivoted upon that delicate cardboard device that floats in a closed
vessel of alcohol.
So the Snark comes back on her course. The breath increases to a
tiny puff. The Snark feels the weight of it and actually heels over
a trifle. There is flying scud overhead, and I notice the stars
being blotted out. Walls of darkness close in upon me, so that,
when the last star is gone, the darkness is so near that it seems I
can reach out and touch it on every side. When I lean toward it, I
can feel it loom against my face.
