CHAPTER XXVII
We are now south of Rio and working south. We are out of the
latitude of the trades, and the wind is capricious. Rain squalls and
wind squalls vex the Elsinore. One hour we may be rolling
sickeningly in a dead calm, and the next hour we may be dashing
fourteen knots through the water and taking off sail as fast as the
men can clew up and lower away. A night of calm, when sleep is well-
nigh impossible in the sultry, muggy air, may be followed by a day of
blazing sun and an oily swell from the south'ard, connoting great
gales in that area of ocean we are sailing toward--or all day long
the Elsinore, under an overcast sky, royals and sky sails furled, may
plunge and buck under wind-pressure into a short and choppy head-sea.
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