, as before, on the seeming void.

"Look!" he answered, directing their eyes with his finger: "Is there
nothing there?"

"Nothing."

"You look into the sea. Here, just where the heavens and the waters meet;
along that streak of misty light, into which the waves are tossing
themselves, like little hillocks on the land. There; now 'tis smooth
again, and my eyes did not deceive me. By heavens, it is a ship!"

"Sail, ho!" shouted a voice, from out atop, which sounded in the ears of
our adventurer like the croaking of some sinister spirit, sweeping across
the deep.

"Whereaway?" was the stern demand.

"Here on our lee-quarter, sir," returned the seaman at the top of his
voice. "I make her out a ship close-hauled; but, for an hour past, she has
looked more like mist than a vessel."

"Ay, he is right," muttered Wilder; "and yet 'tis a strange thing that a
ship should be just there."

"And why stranger than that we are here?"

"Why!" said the young man, regarding Mrs Wyllys, who had put this
question, with a perfectly unconscious eye. "I say, 'tis strange she
should be there. I would she were steering northward."

"But you give no reason. Are we always to have warnings from you," she
continued, with a smile, "without reasons? Do you deem us so utterly
unworthy of a reason? or do you think us incapable of thought on a subject
connected with the sea? You have failed to make the essay, and are too
quick to decide. Try us this once. We may possibly deceive your
expectations."

Wilder laughed faintly, and bowed, as if he recollected himself. Still he
entered into no explanation; but again turned his gaze on the quarter of
the ocean where the strange sail was said to be. The females followed his
example, but ever with the same want of success. As Gertrude expressed her
disappointment aloud, the soft tones of the complainant found their way to
the ears of our adventurer.

"You see the streak of dim light," he said, again pointing across the
waste. "The clouds have lifted a little there, but the spray of the sea is
floating between us and the opening. Her spars look like the delicate work
of a spider, against the sky, and yet you see there are all the
proportions, with the three masts, of a noble ship."

Aided by these minute directions, Gertrude at length caught a glimpse of
the faint object, and soon succeeded in giving the true direction to the
look of her governess also. Nothing was visible but the dim outline, not