The harbor-water lay like glass: now and then the tide
stirred it, and all the brown and golden reflections of masts and spars
with it, into the likeness of a rippled agate. Not one of the boats that
were ordinarily to be seen darting hither and yon, like so many
water-bugs, were in motion now; none of the white sails of the gay
sea-parties were running up and swelling with the breeze; none of the
usual naked and natatory cherubs were diving off the wharves into that
deep, warm water; the windows on the seaward side of the town were closed;
the countless children, that were wont to infest the lower streets as if
they grew with no more cost or trouble than the grass between the bricks,
had disappeared in the mysterious way in which swarms of flies will
disappear, as if an east wind had blown them; but no east wind was blowing
here. In all the scene there was hardly any other sign of life than the
fervent sunbeams shedding their cruel lustre overhead: the river flowed
silent and lonely from shore to shore; the whole hot summer sky stretched
just as silent and lonely from horizon to horizon; only the old ferryman,
edging along the bank till he was far up stream, crossed the narrower tide
and drifted down effortless on the other side; only an old black brig lay
at anchor, with furled sail and silent deck, in the middle channel down
below the piers, and from her festering and blistering hull it was that
all the heat and loneliness and silence of the scene seemed to exude--for
it was the fever-ship.
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