They sniffed the steady wind that blew them farther south.

Always they scanned the sky and sniffed the wind.
"It's got to come sometime," repeated Captain Trigger, after each report from Mr.Mott.
"I've known weather like this to last for weeks," said the First Officer.
"In the South Pacific, yes," said the Captain grimly.

"But we're in the South Atlantic, Mott." On the sixth day the barometer began to fall.

The breeze stiffened.
The sea became choppy, and white-caps danced fitfully over the greenish stretches, growing wilder and wilder under the whip of a flouting wind.
The two patchwork sails on the lumbering Doraine flapped noisily for awhile, as if shaking off their tor-por, then suddenly grew taut and fat with prosperity.

The twisted, half-jammed rudder,--far from worthy despite the efforts of its repairers,--whiningly obeyed the man at the wheel, and once more the ship felt the caress of the deep on her cleaving bows.
The horizon to the north and west seemed to draw nearer, the contrast between the deepening blue of the water and the clear azure of the contracting dome more sharply defined.