Thinking thus, and worrying myself as to the best course to be pursued in certain eventualities, I lay there restlessly tossing first to one side, then to the other, until at length, sitting up in my bunk and putting my face to the open port in quest of a breath of fresh air, the fancy took me that the darkness was no longer quite so opaque as it had been, nay, I was sure of it, for by putting my face right up against the circular opening I was enabled to catch an occasional transient gleam of faint, shifting light that I knew was the glancing of the coming dawn upon the back of the oily swell that came creeping up to the ship; while, by directing my glances higher, I found that I was able to make out indistinctly something of the outline of the great black cloud- masses that overhung us.