aordinarily rapid, occupying but a few
minutes; and, even as we stood watching, the pallor strengthened and
spread to right and left and upward, suggesting the stealthy but rapid
withdrawal of an infinite number of dark gauze curtains from the face of
the firmament, until presently the eastern quadrant of the horizon
became visible, the pallid sea showing like a surface of molten lead,
sluggishly undulating like the coils of a sleeping snake, while overhead
stretched an unbroken pall of dark grey cloud that seemed to promise a
drenching downpour of rain before long.

The light from the east stole upward among the clouds and westward along
the surface of the sea with amazing rapidity, yet to our impatience its
progress seemed exasperatingly slow, for away down in the west the
darkness was still profound. And yet, even as we gazed, that darkness
seemed to become diluted, as it were, with the advancing light that we
could almost see sliding along the surface of the water, until suddenly,
as though emerging from an invisible mist, a ghostly object appeared,
grey and elusive, against the background of darkness, and with one voice
we all three shouted:

"There she is?"

Yes, there she was--a large ship, about seven miles away, lying
becalmed, like ourselves, with all plain sail set, to her royals and
flying-jib. For perhaps half a minute after our first sight of her the
light was too weak and uncertain to enable us to discern details; but as
we kept our telescopes persistently bearing upon her, first one
distinctive feature and then another became revealed.

"She's a full-rigged ship, lying broadside-on to us, Mr Delamere,"
announced young Dundas.

"So I perceive," I returned somewhat dryly. "And I notice, also, that
she has swung with her head to the southward."

"She's a big lump of a craft, not very far short of 900 tons, I should
say," commented Henderson, with his eye still glued to the eye-piece of
the schooner's glass. "And," he continued, after a slight pause, "I
reckon she's a foreigner; that high poop and them deep-curvin'
headboards never took shape in a British shipyard, I'm prepared to swear
to that. Looks to me like a Dutchman. What do you think, Mr
Delamere?"

"I agree with you that she is undoubtedly a foreigner," answered I; "but
I don't think she is Dutch--there is too much gilding and
gingerbread-work about her quarters for that. There,"--as the sun broke
through the clouds and showed his up