In Search of an Unknown Race — page 232: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

218 VAN, taking the step he had. Still reasoning that the end would perhaps justify the means, he kept on. The composition rowlock, intended for a steering oar when needed, was wound about with braided sennit, so that Van found he could scull the light twenty-foot boat without the slightest perceptible noise. There was no danger of losing the Bellingham, whose red and green lights, rising and falling with the lazy roll of the ship, could be seen nearly a mile away, while the glow of the schooner’s binnacle lamp made a little halo in the gloom as he softly urged the boat toward it. As he drew nearer and nearer, Van held his oar motionless and listened. Perfect stillness is, of course, an unknown condition of things at sea, for in the calmest of calms, when the faintest zephyr is asleep, the pulsing of the ocean’s breast is always heard. Save for this and the occasional creak of the schooner’s main boom, the ‘‘plap” of reef points against the use- less sails, and the distant swash of water about the bow, the silence was unbroken. Van gave his oar a few rapid though silent turns, and, drawing it in, let the boat drift forward by its own impetus toward the dusky mass which suddenly loomed out of the darkness before him. That the schooner’s wheel was deserted, he could tell by the reflection from the binnacle light. Fending the boat off with both hands, Van took a turn with the painter round the main plates, and listened again. A murmur of voices from somewhere forward showed that some of the crew, at least, were awake. Whether they were on the watch against a surprise or not was another thing. GomMmichbooks (E(0)