Towards seven o'clock I fancied I heard the cries of birds above my head.

The sound was repeated three times, and as I went up to the captain to ask him about it, I heard him mutter to himself,-- "Birds! why, that looks as if land were not far off." But although Curtis might still cling to the hope of reaching land, I knew not what it was to have one sanguine thought.

For me there was neither continent nor island; the world was one fluid sphere, uniform, monotonous, as in the most primitive period of its formation.
Nevertheless it must be owned that it was with a certain amount of impatience that I awaited the rising of the mist, for I was anxious to shake off the phantom fallacies that Curtis's words had suggested to my mind.
Not till eleven o'clock did the fog begin to break, and as it rolled in heavy folds along the surface of the water, I could every now and then catch glimpses of a clear blue sky beyond.

Fierce sunbeams pierced the cloud-rifts, scorching and burning our bodies like red-hot iron; but it was only above our heads that there was any sunlight to condense the vapour; the horizon was still quite invisible.

There was no wind, and for half an hour longer the fog hung heavily round the raft; whilst Curtis, leaning against the side, strove to penetrate the obscurity.