The surface of the lake was first broken after one of these
symptoms, and it was this infallible sign of a gale which had assured Maso
there was no time to lose. This movement of the element in a calm is a
common phenomenon on waters that are much environed with elevated and
irregular head-lands, and it is a certain proof that wind is on some
distant portion of the sheet. It occurs frequently on the ocean, too,
where the mariner is accustomed to find a heavy sea setting in one
direction, the effects of some distant storm, while the breeze around him
is blowing in its opposite. It had been succeeded by the single rolling
swell, like the outer circle of waves produced by dropping a stone into
the water, and the regular and increasing agitation of the lake, until the
element broke as in a tempest, and that seemingly of its own volition,
since not a breath of air was stirring. This last and formidable symptom
of the force of the coming gust, however, had now become so unequivocal,
that, at the moment when the three travellers and the patron fell from her
gangway, the Winkelried, to use a seaman's phrase, was literally wallowing
in the troughs of the seas.
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