"Five thousand-six, six thousand eight hundred"--the dip-dial
reads ere we find the easterly drift, heralded by a flurry of
snow at the thousand fathom level. Captain Purnall rings up the
engines and keys down the governor on the switch before him.
There is no sense in urging machinery when Eolus himself gives
you good knots for nothing. We are away in earnest now--our nose
notched home on our chosen star. At this level the lower clouds
are laid out, all neatly combed by the dry fingers of the East.
Below that again is the strong westerly blow through which we
rose. Overhead, a film of southerly drifting mist draws a
theatrical gauze across the firmament. The moonlight turns the
lower strata to silver without a stain except where our shadow
underruns us. Bristol and Cardiff Double Lights (those statelily
inclined beams over Severnmouth) are dead ahead of us; for we
keep the Southern Winter Route. Coventry Central, the pivot of
the English system, stabs upward once in ten seconds its spear of
diamond light to the north; and a point or two off our starboard
bow The Leek, the great cloud-breaker of Saint David's Head,
swings its unmistakable green beam twenty-five degrees each way.
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