ck," said I, turning to the man: "let her come to again and
luff a point. There may be living creatures aboard of her."

Knowing what sort of man Captain Coxon was, I do not think that I
should have had the hardihood to luff the ship a point out of her
course had it involved the bracing of the yards; for the songs of the
men would certainly have brought him on deck, and I might have provoked
some ugly insolence. But the ship was going free, and would head more
westerly without occasioning further change than slightly slackening
the weather-braces of the upper yards. This I did quietly; and the
dismantled hull was brought right dead on end with our flying jib-boom.
The men now caught sight of her, and began to stare and point; but did
not sing out, as they saw by the telescope in my hand that I perceived
her. The breeze unhappily began to slacken somewhat, owing perhaps to
the gathering heat of the sun; our pace fell off: and a full hour
passed before we brought the wreck near enough to see her
permanently,--for up to this she had been constantly vanishing under
the rise of the swell. She was now about two miles off, and I took a
long and steady look at her through the telescope. It was a black hull
with painted ports. The deck was flush fore and aft, and there was a
good-sized house just before where the mainmast should have been. This
house was uninjured, though the galley was split up, and to starboard
stood up in splinters like the stump of a tree struck by lightning. No
boats could be seen aboard of her. Her jib-boom was gone, and so were
all three masts,--clean cut off at the deck, as though a hand-saw had
done it; but the mizzenmast was alongside, held by the shrouds and
backstays, and the port main and fore shrouds streamed like serpents
from her chains into the water. I reckoned at once that she must be
loaded with timber, for she never could keep afloat at that depth with
any other kind of cargo in her.

She made a most mournful and piteous object in the sunlight, sluggishly
rolling to the swell which ran in transparent volumes over her sides
and foamed around the deck-house. Once when her stern rose, I read the
name _Cecilia_ in broad white letters.

I was gazing intently, in the effort to witness some indication of
living thing on board, when, to my mingled consternation and horror, I
witnessed an arm projecting through the window of the deck-house and
frantically waving what resembled a white h