fectually hidden from his sight by the dazzling brightness of the
flames and the dense clouds of smoke which went rolling heavily to
leeward before the now scanty wind. The fire had made steady progress
during the night, the hull forward being burned down nearly to the
waters' edge; while aft, the flames had extended to the after hatchway,
and the main-mast, burnt through at its heel, had gone by the board and
fallen forward into the fiercest of the fire, where it was rapidly
consuming. Luckily for the wretched Walford, the ship was once more
dead before the wind, and the flames were fanned forward; had her head
been in the opposite direction, his retreat would have been effectually
cut off. As it was, the heat was so intense that he instinctively
avoided it by springing up the poop-ladder and making his way as far aft
as possible.

Arrived at the extreme end of the poop, he stood gazing intently down
into the black water, and presently he began muttering again.

"Yes," he said, pointing down into the hollow of the swell as it came
creeping up after the ship, "that is the spot where he went down; I saw
him; I was standing near the bulwarks, and when he sprang my eyes
followed him; I heard his dying cry; and I saw his last agonised upward
look of despair as he went down with a plunge into the hollow between
the waves, and the waters closed over his head for ever. For ever?
Yes, surely--and yet--what is that white gleaming object there now,
glaring up at me from beneath the water? It is--it _is_ the face of the
dead man. Ha! see he is beckoning to me. Then it _was_ his voice I
heard calling to me. Listen--what was that? Did you call, Thomson? He
will not answer; he is tired of calling; but the white ghastly face is
still there, and--see--there too is the beckoning hand. It is my
summons, and I must obey."

At that moment the weird plaintive scream of a sea-bird came floating
down out of the grey shadows of the dawn, and Walford, starting
violently, stood for a moment in an attitude of rapt attention. The cry
was repeated; he glared wildly round him for an instant, and then,
screaming hoarsely "I come--I come!" sprang over the guard-rails and
into the sea.

CHAPTER TEN.

A STRANGE RENCONTRE.

We left the _Aurora_, as the reader will remember, at the moment when,
by the merest hair's breadth, she was enabled to avoid what must have
been a terribly disastrous collision with the ill-fated _Princess Roya