ather bright and warm, with a blue sky shining among
heavy, white, April-looking clouds, and the ship making seven knots
under all plain sail. The decks were dry and comfortable, and the ship
had a habitable and civilized look, by reason of the row of clothes
hung by the seamen to dry on the forecastle.

It was half past nine o'clock, and I was standing near the taffrail
looking at a shoal of porpoises playing some hundreds of feet astern,
when the man who was steering asked me to look in the direction to
which he pointed--that was, a little to the right of the bowsprit--and
say if there was anything to be seen there; for he had caught sight of
something black upon the horizon twice, but could not detect it now.

I turned my eyes toward the quarter of the sea indicated, but could
discern nothing whatever; and telling him that what he had seen was
probably a wave, which, standing higher than his fellows, will
sometimes show black a long distance off, walked to the fore part of
the poop.

The breeze still held good; and the vessel was slipping easily through
the water, though the southerly swell made her roll and at times shook
the wind out of the sails. The skipper had gone to lie down,--being
pretty well exhausted, I daresay; for he had kept the deck for the
greater part of three nights running. Duckling was also below. Most
of my watch were on the forecastle, sitting or lying in the sun, which
shone very warm upon the decks; the hens under the long-boat were
chattering briskly, and the cocks crowing, and the pigs grunting, with
the comfort of the warmth.

Suddenly, as the ship rose, I distinctly beheld something black out
away upon the horizon, showing just under the foot of the foresail. It
vanished instantly; but I was not satisfied, and went for the glass
which lay upon the brackets just under the companion. I then told the
man who was steering to keep her away a couple of points for a few
moments; and resting the glass against the mizzen-royal backstay,
pointed it toward the place where I had seen the black object.

For some moments nothing but sea or sky filled the field of the glass
as the ship rose and fell; but all at once there leaped into this field
the hull of a ship, deep as her main-chains in the water, which came
and went before my eye as the long seas lifted or dropped in the
foreground. I managed to keep her sufficiently long in view to
perceive that she was totally dismasted.

"It's a wre