About this story
You play Featherstone, her owner, when one of the shapes drifts past something that rolls wrong in the swell — a copper cylinder, sealed hard at both ends. Inside is a manuscript signed Adam More, who says he sailed south. The wind has not returned. Someone has to read it aloud.
Who you’ll meet
Melick, the yacht's impatient man of letters, with Oxenden the scholar and the Falcon's sailor — the three men who discover the mystery, not the story's reader.
How it opens
On February fifteenth, 1850, the Falcon lay without wind between Madeira and the Canaries.
The yacht rose upon long glassy swells while slack canvas and warm air encouraged idleness.
Featherstone, your novel has not changed pages in half an hour.
OxendenMelick intends to improve navigation by launching stationery.
Dr CongreveHis fleet at least requires no wind and carries no patients.
Choose
The plot has become becalmed with the yacht.
I am testing whether indolence can count as study.