Not more than two, or at the most three, seconds had elapsed.

The ship was, for the moment, full in view.

As I looked, she gave a queer kind of quick shiver, prow and stern, and then sideways.

It was for all the world like a rat shaken in the mouth of a skilled terrier.

Then she remained still, the one placid thing to be seen, for all around her the sea seemed to shiver in little independent eddies, as when water is broken without a current to guide it.
I continued to look, and when the deck was, or seemed, quite still--for the shivering water round the ship kept catching my eyes through the outer rays of the lenses--I noticed that nothing was stirring.