When the sun had disappeared below the sea line, the colour of the ocean had changed from all the dazzling tints of the king-opal to a sombre coal-black hue, and myriads of stars were beginning to make their appearance in the sky, I turned my boat's head, and pulled towards the shore again. A great melancholy had settled upon me, a vague sense of some impending catastrophe, of which, try how I would, I found I could not rid myself.