The myriads upon myriads of stars that then shone out with startling brilliancy was something amazing; and the puzzle to Fritz was, how astronomers could name and place all these "lesser lights"-- following their movements from day to day and year's end to year's end, without an error of calculation, so that they could tell the precise spot in the firmament where to find them at any hour they might wish! "And yet," said Fritz, musingly, "these wise men are puzzled sometimes." "Nary a doubt o' thet," responded the skipper, who, in spite of his rough manner and somewhat uncultivated language, thought more deeply than many would have given him credit for; "I guess, mister, all the book-larnin' in the world won't give us an insight inter the workin's o' providence!" "No," said Fritz.

"The study of the infinite makes all our puny efforts at probing into the mysteries of nature and analysing the motives of nature's God appear mean and contemptible, even to ourselves." "Thet's a fact," assented the skipper.

"Look thaar, now! Don't thet sky-e, now, take the gildin' off yer bunkum phi-loserphy an' tall talkin' 'bout this system an' thet--ain't thet sight above worth more'n a bushel o' words, I reckon, hey ?" Fritz gazed upwards in the direction the other pointed, right over the port quarter of the ship and where the starry expanse of the stellar world stretched out in all its beauty.
Eastwards, near the constellation Scorpio, was the Southern Cross, which had first attracted their attention, the figurative crucifix of the heavens; while the "scorpion," itself, upreared its head aloft, surmounted by a brilliant diadem of stars that twinkled and scintillated in flashes of light, like a row of gems of the first water--the body of the fabled animal being marked out in fine curves, in which fancy could trace its general proportions, half-way down the heavens.

In a more southerly direction, still, the parallel stars of the twin heroes Castor and Pollux could be seen, shining out with full lustre in a sky that was beautifully, intensely blue, conveying a sense of depths beyond depths of azure beyond; and, as the wondering lookers gazed and the night deepened, fresh myriads of stars appeared to come forth and swell the heavenly phalanx, although the greater lights still maintained their glittering superiority, Jupiter emitting an effulgence of radiant beams from his throne at the zenith, while the Milky Way powdered the great celestial dome with a smoke wreath of starlets that circled across the firmament in crescent fashion, like a sort of triumphal arch of flashing diamonds which the angels could tread in their missions from heaven to earth, or the feet of those translated to the realms of the blest! "Grand, ain't it ?" repeated the skipper.
But Fritz said nothing; his thoughts went deeper than words.
A day or two after this, the north-east wind suddenly failed and a dead calm set in, lasting for twenty-four hours.

This circumstance did not please Captain Brown much, for he hardly knew what to make of it; however, after a day and night of stagnation, the breeze returned again, although, in the interim of lull, it took it into its head to shift round more to the southwards, causing the _Pilot's Bride_ to run close- hauled.
On the evening before this change of wind, and while the calm yet continued, the sea presented what seemed to Fritz--and Eric too, for he had never seen such a sight before, although he had much better acquaintance with the wonders of the deep than his brother--a most extraordinary scene of phosphorescent display, the strange effect of it being almost magical.
The sun had set early and the moon did not rise till late; but, as soon as the orb of day had disappeared below water, the horizon all round became nearly as black as ink, without any after-glow, as had invariably been noticed at previous sunsets.