But scarcely did the rays from the lamp pierce that languid haze.

Objects before perceived with difficulty, now glimmered ambiguously.

Bedded in strange vapors, the great foot-light cast a dubious, half demoniac glare across the waters, like the phantasmagoric stream sent athwart a London flagging in a night-rain from an apothecary's blue and green window.

Through this sardonical mist, the face of the Man-in-the-Moon--looking right towards the combatants, as if he were standing in a trap-door of the sea, leaning forward leisurely with his arms complacently folded over upon the edge of the horizon--this queer face wore a serious, apishly self-satisfied leer, as if the Man-in-the-Moon had somehow secretly put up the ships to their contest, and in the depths of his malignant old soul was not unpleased to see how well his charms worked.

There stood the grinning Man-in-the-Moon, his head just dodging into view over the rim of the sea:--Mephistopheles prompter of the stage.
Aided now a little by the planet, one of the consorts of the Richard, the Pallas, hovering far outside the fight, dimly discerned the suspicious form of a lonely vessel unknown to her.