This cloud extended itself slowly, obliterating, ere long, most of the stars also, so that it was scarcely possible to distinguish any object more than a yard or two in advance of them.

The dead calm, however, continued unbroken, and the few of heaven's lights which still glimmered through the obscurity above were clearly reflected in the great black mirror below.

Only the faint gleam of Krakatoa's threatening fires was visible on the horizon, while the occasional boom of its artillery sounded in their ears.
It was impossible for any inexperienced man, however courageous, to avoid feelings of awe, almost amounting to dread, in the circumstances, and Nigel--as he tried to penetrate the darkness around him and glanced at the narrow craft in which he sat and over the sides of which he could dip both hands at once into the sea--might be excused for wishing, with all his heart, that he were safely on shore, or on the deck of his father's brig.

His feelings were by no means relieved when Van der Kemp said, in a low soliloquising tone-- "The steamers will constitute our chief danger to-night.

They come on with such a rush that it is not easy to make out how they are steering, so as to get out of their way in time." "But should we not hear them coming a long way off ?" asked Nigel.
"Ay.