ster resolution to answer.

"Get the fore-top-gallant-sail on the ship, sir," continued Wilder, when
the customary reply let him know that he had been heard.

The mate and his companions regarded each other, for a moment, in dull
admiration; and many a melancholy shake of the head was exchanged, before
one of the party threw himself into the weather-rigging, and proceeded
aloft, with a doubting mind, in order to loosen the sail in question.

There was certainly enough, in the desperate manner with which Wilder
pressed the canvas on the vessel, to excite distrust, either of his
intentions or judgment, in the opinions of men less influenced by
superstition than those it was now his lot to command. It had long been
apparent to Earing, and his more ignorant, and consequently more
obstinate, brother officer, that their young superior had the same desire
to escape from the spectral-looking ship, which so strangely followed
their movements, as they had themselves. They only differed in the mode;
but this difference was so very material, that the two mates consulted
together apart, and then Earing, something stimulated by the hardy
opinions of his coadjutor, approached his Commander, with the
determination of delivering the results of their united judgments, with
that sort of directness which he thought the occasion now demanded. But
there was that in the steady eye and imposing mien of Wilder, that caused
him to touch on the dangerous subject with a discretion and circumlocution
that were a little remarkable for the individual. He stood watching the
effect of the sail recently spread for several minutes, before he even
presumed to open his mouth. But a terrible encounter, between the vessel
and a wave that lifted its angry crest apparently some dozen feet above
the approaching bows, gave him courage to proceed, by admonishing him
afresh of the danger of continuing silent.

"I do not see that we drop the stranger, though the ship is wallowing
through the water so heavily," he commenced, determined to be as
circumspect as possible in his advances.

Wilder bent another of his frequent glances on the misty object in the
horizon, and then turned his frowning eye towards the point whence the
wind proceeded, as if he would defy its heaviest blasts; he, however, made
no answer.

"We have ever found the crew discontented at the pumps, sir," resumed the
other, after a pause sufficient for the reply he in vain expected; "I need
not