It was daylight, the everlasting day of those regions—­a pale, dim light, resembling no other—­bathing all things, like the gleams of a setting sun.  Around them stretched an immense colourless waste, and excepting the planks of their ship, all seemed transparent, ethereal, and fairy-like.  The eye could not distinguish what the scene might be:  first it appeared as a quivering mirror that had no objects to reflect; and in the distance it became a desert of vapour; and beyond that a void, having neither horizon nor limits.

The damp freshness of the air was more intensely penetrating than dry frost; and when breathing it, one tasted the flavour of brine.  All was calm, and the rain had ceased; overhead the clouds, without form or colour, seemed to conceal that latent light that could not be explained; the eye could see clearly, yet one was still conscious of the night; this dimness was all of an indefinable hue.

The three men on deck had lived since their childhood upon the frigid seas, in the very midst of their mists, which are vague and troubled as the background of dreams.  They were accustomed to see this varying infinitude play about their paltry ark of planks, and their eyes were as used to it as those of the great free ocean-birds.

The boat rolled gently with its everlasting wail, as monotonous as a Breton song moaned by a sleeper.  Yann and Sylvestre had got their bait and lines ready, while their mate opened a barrel of salt, and whetting his long knife went and sat behind them, waiting.

He did not have long to wait, or they either.  They scarcely had thrown their lines into the calm, cold water in fact, before they drew in huge heavy fish, of a steel-grey sheen.  And time after time the codfish let themselves be hooked in a rapid and unceasing silent series.  The third man ripped them open with his long knife, spread them flat, salted and counted them, and piled up the lot—­which upon their return would constitute their fortune—­behind them, all still redly streaming and still sweet and fresh.

The hours passed monotonously, while in the immeasurably empty regions beyond the light slowly changed till it grew less unreal.  What at first had appeared a livid gloaming, like a northern summer’s eve, became now, without any intervening “dark hour before dawn,” something like a smiling morn, reflected by all the facets of the oceans in fading, roseate-edged streaks.

“You really ought to marry, Yann,” said Sylvestre, suddenly and very seriously this time, still looking into the water. (He seemed to know somebody in Brittany, who had allowed herself to be captivated by the brown eyes of his “big brother,” but he felt shy upon so solemn a subject.)

“Me!  Lor’, yes, some day I will marry.”  He smiled, did the always contemptuous Yann, rolling his passionate eyes.  “But I’ll have none of the lasses at home; no, I’ll wed the sea, and I invite ye all in the barkey now, to the ball I’ll give at my wedding.”