eding not
much facilitated by the vapors partly mantling the hull, through which
the far matin light from her cabin streamed equivocally enough; much
like the sun--by this time hemisphered on the rim of the horizon, and,
apparently, in company with the strange ship entering the harbor--which,
wimpled by the same low, creeping clouds, showed not unlike a Lima
intriguante's one sinister eye peering across the Plaza from the Indian
loop-hole of her dusk _saya-y-manta._

It might have been but a deception of the vapors, but, the longer the
stranger was watched the more singular appeared her manoeuvres. Ere
long it seemed hard to decide whether she meant to come in or no--what
she wanted, or what she was about. The wind, which had breezed up a
little during the night, was now extremely light and baffling, which the
more increased the apparent uncertainty of her movements. Surmising, at
last, that it might be a ship in distress, Captain Delano ordered his
whale-boat to be dropped, and, much to the wary opposition of his mate,
prepared to board her, and, at the least, pilot her in. On the night
previous, a fishing-party of the seamen had gone a long distance to some
detached rocks out of sight from the sealer, and, an hour or two before
daybreak, had returned, having met with no small success. Presuming that
the stranger might have been long off soundings, the good captain put
several baskets of the fish, for presents, into his boat, and so pulled
away. From her continuing too near the sunken reef, deeming her in
danger, calling to his men, he made all haste to apprise those on board
of their situation. But, some time ere the boat came up, the wind, light
though it was, having shifted, had headed the vessel off, as well as
partly broken the vapors from about her.

Upon gaining a less remote view, the ship, when made signally visible on
the verge of the leaden-hued swells, with the shreds of fog here and
there raggedly furring her, appeared like a white-washed monastery after
a thunder-storm, seen perched upon some dun cliff among the Pyrenees.
But it was no purely fanciful resemblance which now, for a moment,
almost led Captain Delano to think that nothing less than a ship-load of
monks was before him. Peering over the bulwarks were what really seemed,
in the hazy distance, throngs of dark cowls; while, fitfully revealed
through the open port-holes, other dark moving figures were dimly
descried, as of Black Friars pacing the