On a clear September evening the Amirald put out to sea, before a dying wind that veered among the black fir islands. Bunty and Zwinglius stood amidships, watching the infant endeavors of the new foresail. By the taffrail sat Joyce, bareheaded, her hair darkly ruddy in the level glow of sunset waves, against which the captain, a giant silhouette, revolved a quick pattern of radiating spokes. Down the vastness of the sky astern thin arcs of cloud, white overhead, pearl, rose, and saffron toward the west, curved from the zenith like frail ribs of an infinite vaulted aisle spanning sea and land.
"Wind to-morrer, likely." The captain turned his head, and looked down the enormous nave toward the sinking glory. "Might be his arch,—your sailor man's. 'All experience,' eh, Joyce? Well, we 're goin' through it together."
And to them, as to Ulysses, the deep called round with many voices of the past and the future.
