The Castaways Page 5

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  THE CITY OF CAWNPORE'S QUARTER BOAT.

  The height of the poop rail from the surface of the water had by thistime grown so insignificant, by reason of the depth to which the hull ofthe ship had become immersed, that upon striking the water I onlydescended about a foot below the surface, ere rising again; while mycompanion was so effectually supported by the lifebuoy that she remainedquite dry above the shoulders. The water was not at all cold, indeed itwas of quite a pleasant temperature, so I anticipated no discomfort onthat account, either for my companion or myself. Now--that we wereactually overboard my first anxiety was to place as great a distance aspossible between ourselves and the sinking ship, so that we mightperchance escape being dragged down by her when she should founder. Itherefore at once thrust my left arm through one of the beckets of thelifebuoy, and struck out with all my strength away from the ship,swimming athwart the sea, so that it might not break in our faces, andtowing my companion after me. I contrived to place a distance of abouta hundred fathoms between us and the ship before she disappeared--whichwas very considerably more than I had dared to hope for when we jumpedoverboard--and although this did not carry us quite clear of the vortexcreated by the sinking ship, it carried us so far away that we were onlydragged back somewhat toward the centre, without being taken under. Iswam for another ten minutes, and then, deeming that we were so fardistant as to be free from all danger of injury by the rising offloating wreckage under us, it seemed advisable to heave-to and husbandmy strength a little, since I could not tell to what extent it might betaxed in the immediate future. As to my companion, she was put to noexertion whatever, the lifebuoy supporting her perfectly; and when Iinquired as to her welfare she informed me that she felt quite ascomfortable and as much at ease as could be reasonably expected underthe circumstances.

  I allowed a quarter of an hour--as nearly as I could guess it--to elapseafter the disappearance of the ship; and then, believing that whateverwreckage was likely to float up from her to the surface would alreadyhave done so, I thought we might safely return to the scene of thecatastrophe, since it was upon the existence of a certain amount offloating wreckage that I built such slight hope as I entertained of ourultimate preservation. I knew pretty exactly the bearings of the spotwhere the ship had gone down--having taken them by the moon--and, thusguided, I struck out over the way that we had recently travelled, towingMiss Onslow after me; and as I swam I could not help a feeling ofsurprise at the height of the sea, which seemed mountainous, now that wewere down upon its surface, although from the deck of the ship it hadappeared nothing at all extraordinary. I had been swimming some fiveminutes or so when, as we floated up on the breast of a wave, I saw inthe dim moonlight what looked like a quantity of loose, floatingwreckage at no very great distance away, but slightly to windward; andtoward this we made the best of our way, ultimately arriving in themidst of a quantity of loose, jagged, and splintered planking tangled upwith a raffle of spars, sails, and rigging. It was rather dangerousstuff to venture among, as some of the loose planks were lancing aboutin the wash of the sea with considerable violence, and a blow from ajagged end would have inflicted a more or less serious injury, even hadit not killed us outright; but at length I found a little clear spaceamong the wreckage, into which I towed my companion, and presently wefound ourselves close alongside one of the masts, with the after-rim ofthe top riding dry; and on to this I at once climbed, hauling MissOnslow after me, and lashing her securely to the top by means of an endof rope cut from among the raffle. Here we were reasonably safe andcomfortable, for we were upon a raft of buoyant material that wouldprobably float for months, while there was so much of it that iteffectually broke the sea and prevented it from washing over us. It wasa terrible situation for such a delicately-nurtured girl as she who hadso unexpectedly been thrown under my protecting care; but throughout thenight she never uttered a single word that could be construed intocomplaint; nor did she evince the slightest fear; on the contrary, sheexhibited a calm and steadfast courage that filled me with admiration,although the questions that she put to me from time to time rendered itperfectly clear that she very fully realised the desperate nature of ourpredicament.

  Some time during the night--it would probably be about midnight--thewind dropped to a light breeze, and the sea began to go down, until bydaylight there was only a very gentle air blowing, with very little sea,but a long, heavy swell; the clouds all went drifting away out of sight,leaving the sky clear; and there was, generally, a very promisingprospect that the coming day would be fine.

  The moment that it was light enough to see, I scrambled up on thewreckage and took a long look round, in the hope of descrying a sail,but the horizon was bare. Then, as the light grew stronger, I proceededto minutely inspect the mass of wreckage that had afforded us shelterthroughout the night, with the view of ascertaining its capabilities asa refuge for a more or less lengthy period--until, in fact, we wereeither taken off by a passing ship, or perished of starvation. Thereseemed to be a great deal of it--much more than I could satisfactorilyaccount for--but as the dawn spread and brightened, and objects grewincreasingly distinct, everything became intelligible, even to the causeof the catastrophe that had so suddenly and terribly hurled us from asituation of safety and comfort into one of the direst peril anduncertainty. For I found that while my companion and I were clinging tothe wreckage of the ill-fated _City of Cawnpore's_ mainmast--the wholeof which had somehow come adrift from the hull--we were surrounded byand tangled up with a large quantity of planking and woodwork, some ofwhich we recognised as having belonged to our own ship, while theremainder resolved itself into the shattered hull of a large,timber-laden, wooden ship which had been cut nearly half through by thetremendous impact of our own vessel upon it when she struck it and sodestroyed herself in the darkness of the preceding night. A minuteinspection of this wreck enabled me to clearly understand exactly whathad happened: the stranger had been dismasted--for her spars were stillattached to her hull--and had, at the same time, or subsequently, becomewater-logged to such an extent as to submerge her hull nearly to thelevel of the deck; her crew had abandoned her; and she had been leftwashing about, a scarcely visible yet truly formidable death-trap, forour own good ship to blunder upon to her destruction. The force of theblow had turned the stranger nearly bottom up, so I could not even makea guess at her nationality, and, worse still, it had robbed us of apossible chance of slightly bettering our condition by taking up ourquarters aboard her.

  In addition to the mass that my hapless companion and I had taken refugeupon there were a few small quantities of detached wreckage floatinghere and there within a radius of about a quarter of a mile, and amongthese I by and by noticed something that looked so much like a capsizedboat that--as there seemed to be no sharks about--I determined to swimout and examine it. I mentioned my resolution to Miss Onslow, who madeno demur whatever to being left alone for a time, merely remarking, witha somewhat wan smile:

  "If it should by good fortune prove to be a boat, please do not, in yourelation, sail away, forgetting that you have left me behind."

  I assured her that she might absolutely depend upon my never forgettingthat I had undertaken to save her, and therewith plunged into the warmsea.

  Swimming a long, steady stroke, it did not take me very long to reachthe object for which I was aiming, and which proved, as I hadconjectured, to be a ship's boat, swamped, and floating keel up. Andnot only so, but when I got alongside her I was delighted to find thatshe was one of the _City of Cawnpore's_ quarter boats--no doubt the onethat the miners had cut partially adrift ere the ship went down--theespecial significance and importance of this discovery arising from thefact that poor Dacre had made a point of having every item of eachboat's equipment stowed within her, and properly secured; so that,unless something very untoward had happened, it was reasonable to hopethat I should find this craft thus furnished. And, sure enough, sheappeared to be so, when I at length managed to right her, for, as sh
erolled over, I caught sight of the oars, masts, and sails--the latterneatly encased in canvas coats--all securely lashed to the thwarts.Without waiting to further investigate, I got hold of her by the sternand, hanging on by one hand, proceeded to scoop the water out of herwith the other. This was a long job, considerably more than an hourbeing spent in removing the comparatively small quantity of waternecessary to enable me to get into her; but, once in her, I made muchbetter progress, using my two hands to throw the water out, until--having got rid of sufficient to enable me to move about without againfilling the boat--I managed to find a baler, when I made short work ofbaling her dry. This done, I took stock of my prize, and found that Ihad come into possession of a twenty-eight-foot gig, in a perfectlysound and undamaged condition, equipped with four sixteen-foot ash oars,a mast and sails, rowlocks, bottom-boards, stretchers, rudder and yoke,baler, boat-hook, and--priceless treasure, under the circumstances--twobreakers of fresh water securely lashed to the bottom-boards to serve asballast. With such a prize as this what might not be possible? With athankful heart I cast adrift the oars, shipped a pair, and--standing upfisherman fashion, with my face toward the bow--paddled the boat to thepile of wreckage whereon I had left Miss Onslow.

  The sea had by this time gone down to such an extent that I had nodifficulty in putting the boat alongside the wreckage, taking the younglady on board, and shoving clear again without damaging the boat in theleast. My clothes were by this time quite dry, and those of mycompanion nearly so; we were therefore, comparatively speaking,comfortable, excepting that we were both sensible of the possession of amost healthy and hearty appetite, which we had no means of satisfying.A casual remark by Miss Onslow upon this unpleasant feature of ouradventure set me thinking, with the result that before leaving our massof wreckage for good, I secured the signal halliards--to serve as afishing-line--together with a fair supply of other small cordage, themain-royal--which I cut away from the wreckage to serve as a sort oftent, to shelter my companion from the dew at night-time--and a smallspike nail or two, which, with considerable labour, I cut out of theplanking of the derelict that had brought disaster upon us. These lastI secured with the rather hazy idea that it might be possible for me tofile them down and convert them into fish-hooks with the aid of a smallfile that formed one of the implements in my pocket-knife. Thusprovided, I shipped the boat's rudder and yoke, stepped the mast, setthe sails, and shoved off, my intention being to shape a course--asnearly as I could hit it off--for Cape Town, in the hope that ere longwe might be fallen in with and picked up by some craft bound thither.The boat, however, had scarcely begun to gather way when I espied, at novery great distance, what I took to be a floating hencoop; and realisingthat, if my conjecture happened to be correct, the coop would probablybe found to contain drowned poultry that, in our desperate situation,would serve for food, I headed the boat for it. My surmise again provedto be well founded; the object turned out to be a coop, and it containedseventeen dead fowls, the whole of which I secured. And in gainingpossession of the poultry I found it necessary to break away two orthree of the slats or bars that formed the front of the coop, thusdiscovering that they were secured to the body of the coop by long,thin, wire nails, out of which I soon satisfied myself that I could makevery promising fish-hooks by merely bending them into the requisiteshape, I secured about a dozen of these nails; and then made sail with afair wind upon an approximately due east course. Although the wind waslight the boat slipped through the water at a very satisfactory pace;and in half an hour's time we had run the wreckage completely out ofsight.

  During the progress of the foregoing operations my companion had beenvery quiet, looking on with an air of interest at everything I did, andoccasionally volunteering her assistance where she seemed to think shemight possibly be able to make herself useful, but otherwise sayinglittle. Now, however, that we had once more settled down into acondition of comparative inactivity she began to question me as to ourwhereabouts, what were my intentions, and so on; all of which questionsI replied to as accurately as I could. Then, after meditating forseveral minutes, she said:

  "And what do you think are our chances of escape, Mr Conyers? Do youconsider that they are favourable enough to justify you in taking sovery much trouble?"

  "Ah," answered I, "if you had asked me that question last night, when wejumped overboard together from the sinking ship, I should probably havefound some difficulty in answering you at once hopefully and truthfully;for, as a matter of fact, I may now tell you that I really had _no_hope, and that, in acting as I did, I was merely obeying that instinctthat urges us all to fight for life so long as we have any fight left inus. But _now_ that we have come into possession of this fine andwell-equipped boat I can honestly say that I consider our chance ofultimate escape is excellent. Of course everything depends upon theweather: if a gale were to spring up, the boat would probably be swampedor capsized by the heavy sea that would quickly rise--although evenunder such adverse conditions as those of a gale I should bring all mysailorly training and knowledge to bear on the task of preserving theboat as long as possible. But if Providence will only favour us withfine weather for, say, a week, I have scarcely a shadow of doubt thatwithin that time we shall be fallen in with and picked up by a craft ofsome sort. For you must understand that we are right in the track ofships bound round the Cape; and those vessels are now so many in numberthat, making a rough guess, I should be inclined to say that an averageof at least one vessel per day must pass within a few miles of thisspot. Of course it may happen that several days will pass without asingle craft of any kind coming along, but, to maintain the average, itis equally likely that three or four may pass in the course of a dozenhours. So you see our chance of being rescued is fairly good."

  "Yes. But," she objected, "suppose it were unfortunately to happen thatseveral days--say seven or eight--were to elapse without our seeing asail; and that, afterwards, such ships as we might see were to pass usat such a long distance that although they would be perfectly visible tous, we should be quite invisible to them: What then?"

  "In that case," said I, "there would be but one course open to us: weshould simply be obliged to keep sailing on until a ship approached usnear enough to see us, taking every care of ourselves meanwhile, andomitting no opportunity to procure such means of supporting life as theocean has to offer us. And that reminds me that neither food nor drinkhas passed our lips since dinner, last night: I know you are hungry,because you said so some time ago; and, as for me, I am famishing. Thefood at our disposal is not particularly inviting--simply raw chickenand cold water--but it is at least fresh, and I think we ought to makethe most of it while it is in that condition."

  Miss Onslow's appetite was not, however, as yet quite keen enough toadmit of her partaking of raw fowl; but she drank a little water out ofthe baler--the only utensil we possessed. As she returned the baler tome she remarked:

  "You must not allow my squeamishness to be a bar to the satisfaction ofyour own appetite, if you feel hungry enough to eat raw flesh. I havebeen told that sailors are so often reduced to desperate straits thatthey eventually become reconciled to the idea of eating almost anything,and are consequently, as a rule, much less fastidious than such pamperedmortals as myself. Moreover, you must not forget that it is of the lastimportance that _your_ strength should be maintained--for your own sake,and for mine as well--if it is not too presumptuous of me to say such athing--therefore please make a meal, if you can. And, although I fullyrealise how absolutely dependent upon you I am, I should like you tounderstand that I do not mean to be a mere helpless burden to you, if itcan be avoided. I am perhaps not physically strong enough to be of muchassistance to you; but in all cases where skill rather than great bodilystrength is required I hope you will unhesitatingly make use of me. Forinstance, you are hungry; but you cannot make even such slightpreparation of your food as is possible, because you are steering theboat. Again, you will soon need rest, but you will be unable to take itunless I am able to ste
er the boat in your stead. Therefore pleaseteach me forthwith how to manage the boat, so that I may be able to`relieve' you--as I think you sailors call it--from time to time, as mayprove necessary."

  And this was the girl who, while on board ship, had hedged herself inand kept us all at arm's-length by a barrier of such chill and haughtyreserve as had at times approached very nearly to insolence!

  Of course I eagerly accepted her offer--for I foresaw that a time wouldvery soon arrive when her assistance would be indispensable--and at onceproceeded to initiate her into the art of steering. Unfortunately, wewere running dead before the wind at the time--which is the mostdifficult point of sailing for a novice to master--yet my new pupilseemed to grasp the idea at once and without an effort; and a quarter ofan hour later she was watching the run of the sea and checking thetendency of the boat to round-to almost as knowingly and cleverly asthough she had been sailing a boat all her lifetime.

  The moment that I found she could be trusted alone I took up a positionon the midship thwart and, selecting the best-looking fowl from ourstock, proceeded to pluck and draw it, afterwards giving it a good washin the salt water alongside. This done, I cut off a leg and, havingskinned it, sliced off a small piece of flesh which, with manymisgivings, I placed in my mouth and began dubiously to masticate. Theidea of devouring raw flesh seemed to me to be exceedingly repulsive anddisgusting, but it was either that or nothing, and, realising the fulltruth of Miss Onslow's remark upon the importance of maintaining mystrength, I persevered. And presently, when I had conquered in somemeasure the natural repugnance excited by the idea of such food, I foundthat really, after all, it was very much a matter of sentiment, andthat, so far as the flavour was concerned, there was nothing at allobjectionable. The taste was of course novel, and peculiar, but Ithought it possible that one might accustom oneself to it without muchdifficulty. Yet, just at first, a little sufficed, and when I haddespatched one leg I considered that I had made a particularly heartymeal. And I felt so much the better for it that I strove to induce MissOnslow to try a morsel. She gently reiterated her refusal, however,while expressing her satisfaction that I had been able to eat. Then,noticing that her eyes looked heavy, and that her movements werelanguid, I arranged the royal as a sort of couch in the stern-sheets forher, and suggested that she should lie down and endeavour to secure somerest; to which suggestion she acceded; and in a few minutes, completelyworn out with the unaccustomed excitement, fatigue, and exposure throughwhich she had so recently passed, she was sleeping by my side asplacidly as an infant.

  The sun was sinking into a bank of smoky-looking cloud that stretchedalong the horizon on our starboard quarter when my companion awoke,greatly refreshed by her slumbers, but--as she confessed--ravenouslyhungry. I also was beginning to feel anew the pangs of hunger; so,surrendering the yoke-lines to Miss Onslow, I took advantage of whatremained of the fast-waning daylight to prepare a further portion of rawfowl to serve us both, taking care to render the appearance of the fleshas little repulsive as possible. By the time that my preparations--which I had purposely somewhat protracted--were complete, darkness hadso far closed down upon us that it was scarcely possible to see what wewere eating; and, thus aided, and by dint of much persuasion--accentuated by a reminder that we habitually ate oysters raw,--Isucceeded in inducing the poor girl to so far lay aside her prejudicesas just to _taste_ the food I offered her. That accomplished, I had nofurther trouble with her, for her hunger was by this time so sharp thatfood of any sort became palatable, and we both succeeded in making afairly good meal.

  Meanwhile, the bank of cloud that at sunset had been hovering on theverge of the western horizon, had been stealthily creeping zenith-ward,and at the same time spreading out north and south, with a look in itthat seemed to portend more wind; so, as a measure of precaution, I wentto work, upon the conclusion of our meal, and shortened sail by takingdown a couple of reefs in the mainsail, and a single reef in the littlestay foresail which the boat carried. And, this done, I rearranged theroyal in the stern-sheets as a bed for my companion, urging her to turnin at once and get as much rest as she could.

  It was exceedingly fortunate that I had taken the precaution to reef thecanvas of our small hooker; for about an hour or so after sunset--veryshortly, indeed, after the completion of my preparations--the windfreshened up with quite a touch of spite in it, driving us along at aspeed of fully eight knots, and tugging at the mast as though intent ondragging it out of the boat altogether; the sea, moreover, began to riseand break, and by midnight I was in a bath of perspiration induced byanxiety and the effort to keep the boat ahead of and square end-on tothe combers. This condition of excessive and painful anxiety, by theway, was quite a new, as well as decidedly unpleasant, experience forme, and I was deeply mortified and annoyed at the discovery of itsinfluence upon me. I first took myself severely to task about it, andthen proceeded to seek for the cause of the trouble. I was at firstdisposed to attribute it to nerve-shock, induced by the occurrences ofthe preceding twenty-four hours, but a further analysis of my feelingsconvinced me that my nerves were still to be depended upon as implicitlyas ever, and that the real source of my distress lay at my feet, asleep,wrapped up in a sail. Yes; there could be no doubt about it; it was onmy companion's account that I was nervous and anxious; I feared beingcapsized or swamped simply because of the greatly-increased danger anddiscomfort that would in that case accrue to _her_!

  At length--probably about two o'clock in the morning--it breezed up sofiercely, and knocked up such a sea that I dared not run the boat anylonger, so, watching my chance, I put the helm down and hove-to on thelarboard tack, with the boat's head to the northward, and anxiouslyawaited the coming of daylight. Soon after this, Miss Onslow awoke, andseemed considerably alarmed at the change in the weather and the wildmovements of the boat; but I managed to reassure her; and then,observing that I had lashed the port yoke-line, and was no longer doinganything, she suggested that we should change places, and that I shouldget a little sleep! After my assurances as to the utter absence of anydanger I found it somewhat difficult to make her understand--withoutalarming her--that it was still as urgently necessary as ever for me towatch the boat.

  At length the dawn came filtering slowly through a murky and ratherangry-looking sky, and as the darkness gradually melted away from offthe face of the weltering waters I made out the canvas of a large ship,some eight miles off, to leeward. She had passed us about an hourearlier, probably not more than three miles away; and had there onlybeen daylight I should doubtless have succeeded in attracting herattention. As it was, there was no hope of any such thing now; she wassailing away from instead of toward us, and sailors seldom look astern;their attention is mostly directed to what lies ahead. And even had itbeen otherwise, it was too late now to think of making ourselves seen;she was too far off; and chasing her was quite out of the question, forshe was bowling along under topgallant studding-sails, making the utmostof a fair wind, while we dared show no more than double-reefed canvas.Fortunately, Miss Onslow was sleeping again, and did not see thestranger, which had run out of sight beyond the horizon by the time thatmy companion next awoke, so I did not mention the circumstance. Theappearance of this vessel, however, was cheering and encouraging,inasmuch as it tended to show that I was still in the track of shipping.

  As the day wore slowly on the wind steadily freshened until it wasblowing a single-reefed topsail breeze, that brought with it acorresponding increase in the height and run of the seas, which atlength became so dangerous that I dared no longer keep the boat undersail, but was constrained to douse the canvas and use it, with the mastand oars, as a floating anchor for the boat. Riding to these, at thefull scope of our rather long painter, we were much more easy andcomfortable; but this advantage was discounted to a great extent by thefact that during the day two other vessels passed us--at too great adistance to allow of our attracting their attention, low down in thewater as we were, and with no means of signalling to them, yet not sofar off
but that we might have been seen had there been a pair of sharpeyes aboard; while if it had been possible for us to carry sail, wemight have easily intercepted either of them. It was a cruelly bitterdisappointment to us to see these two craft go sliding along the horizonwhile I wore myself out with unavailing efforts to attract theirattention. My companion bore her disappointment bravely; she even chidme gently when I sank down exhausted into the bottom of the boat, with abitter curse upon the blindness of the crew, as the second of the twoships vanished beyond the rim of the horizon; and she reminded me morethan once of words I had spoken to her earlier in the day, to the effectthat although we might miss half a dozen ships through their passing usat too great a distance to allow of our being seen, the seventh would besure to come booming right down upon us, and our only difficulty wouldbe to avoid being run down by her. But later on, when the darkness hadonce more closed down upon us, shutting out everything but the towering,swooping, phosphorescent crests of the threatening seas, I caught hersoftly, silently, and secretly crying; and the sight of her distressaroused a sudden furious anger in me that caused me to again and stillmore savagely execrate the blind lookout kept aboard the vessels thathad that day passed us. And then I began to wonder, bitterly, how manypoor souls--weak, helpless, delicate women and children, andfamine-stricken men--had perished miserably, after drifting about theocean for days that were veritable eternities of suffering, yet mighthave been rescued had the officer of the watch aboard a passing ship butbestowed a trifle more interest and attention upon the small, distant,indistinctly-seen object that for an instant caught his gaze, and whichhe all too hastily assumed to be the slanting pinion of some wanderingsea bird, or the leaping crest of a distant wave.

  We rode thus all through the night, and well on toward noon the nextday, when the weather moderated sufficiently to permit me to make sailonce more. But as the day wore on the wind gradually hauled round untilit was dead on end for us; and nightfall found us heading to thesouthward, with the wind out at about east-south-east.

  This state of things prevailed for the next four days, during which nofurther vessels were sighted, although it is possible that some may havepassed us during the night at such a distance as to be invisible in thedarkness. During this time we were put to great straits for want offood, and suffered all the tortures of slow starvation; for the drownedpoultry soon putrefied and became so offensive that we had to heave themoverboard. I tried to supply the deficiency by fishing, but onlysucceeded in capturing one small shark, about eighteen inches long,which was fortunately hooked in the mouth in such a way that he couldnot cut through the line with his teeth. During this time I watched andsteered the boat all through the night; Miss Onslow relieving me duringthe hours of daylight, in order that I might secure a few hours ofmuch-needed rest. But I was far too anxious, as well as in too muchsuffering, to sleep; the utmost that I could achieve was to dozefitfully and for a few minutes at a time, during which my imaginationconjured up the most tormenting dreams, from which I usually awoke witha violent start and a terrified cry. Then I would spring upon a thwartand search the horizon eagerly and feverishly for the sight of a sail,following this up with a renewed attempt to catch a fish or two. Ishall never forget the courage and fortitude exhibited by Miss Onslowduring this trying period; she never uttered a single word of complaintor impatience, although it was impossible for her to conceal the factthat she suffered acutely; and whenever she found me unusually silentand, as she thought, giving way to dejection, she always had ready aword or two of encouragement.

  Thus matters wearily and painfully progressed with us until six days andseven nights had dragged their slow length away, and a full week hadelapsed since the sinking of the _City of Cawnpore_. We were stillworking our way to the southward, against an amount of wind and sea thatwere quite as much as the boat could look at; and Miss Onslow was at myfeet, wrapped up in the sail, and moaning in her troubled sleep; thehour being about one o'clock in the morning. I was of course _always_on the lookout for a ship, night and day, but the time had now arrivedwhen I began to see craft that had no existence save in my disorderedimagination; I was therefore neither surprised nor elated when Isuddenly became aware of a vague, indefinite shadow of deeper darkness,faintly and doubtfully showing against the horizon broad on my weatherbow; I simply regarded it as another phantom, and thought no more aboutit. Yet I kept my gaze fixed upon it, nevertheless--since. I hadnothing better to occupy my attention; and presently a peculiarity ofthis vision--not shared by the others I had seen--forced itself upon mynotice, inasmuch as that, while the other phantom ships that I had seenhad exhibited a propensity to rush over the surface of the ocean atlightning speed, and to appear in half a dozen quarters or more in asmany seconds, this one obstinately persisted in maintaining the preciseposition in which I had at first discovered her. And it presentlydawned upon me that she had another peculiarity, namely, that of anopacity sufficiently dense to temporarily blot out any low-lying starthat the movement of the boat happened to bring into line with her. Thefull significance of these peculiarities at length became suggestive,and it began to dawn upon me that possibly the craft out yonder mightnot, after all, be a phantom; she might be the vessel destined to affordus rescue and salvation; the vessel for which I had all along beenlooking, and the eventual appearance of which I had so frequently and soconfidently predicted to Miss Onslow.