midnight
I witnessed the forms of huge phantoms flying over the boat ; I watched the beating of their giant wings of shadow and heard the thunder of their laughter as they fled ahead , leaving scores of like monstrous shapes to follow . There was a faint lightning of phosphor in the creaming heads of the ebon surges , and my sick imagination twisted that pallid complexion into the dim reflection of the lamps of illuminated pavilions at the bottom of the sea ; mystic palaces of green marble , radiant cities in the measureless kingdoms of the ocean gods . I had a fancy of roofs of pearl below , turrets of milk-white coral , pavements of rainbow lustre like to the shootings and dartings of the hues of shells inclined and trembled to the sun . I thought I could behold the movements of shapes as indeterminable as the forms which swarm in dreams , human brows crowned with gold , the cold round emerald eyes of fish , the creamy breasts of women , large outlines slowly floating upwards , making a deeper blackness upon the blackness like the dye of the electric storm upon the velvet bosom of midnight . Often would I shrink from side to side , starting from a fancied apparition leaping into terrible being out of some hurling block of liquid obscurity . Once a light shone upon the masthead . At any other time I should have known this to be a St. Elmo 's fire , a corposant , the ignis fatuus of the deep , and hailed it with a seaman 's faith in its promise of gentle weather .