and, Bob having stationed himself at the helm,
which he had put hard over, Dick mounted up on the fo'c's'le to act as
look-out, in case they should run against anything in the semi-darkness
around them, or, more happily still, come in sight of land.

They had not long occupied their respective positions, when Bob's
attention was attracted by a cry of alarm from his companion in the
bows.

"Lawks a mussy!" yelled out Dick in accents of unfeigned terror. "I
sees a white ghostess a-flying down on us, with big wings like a
h'angel!"

"Nonsense, Dick!" cried Bob from aft, trying to peer ahead under the
belly of the sail as he was sitting to leeward. "There are no such
things as ghosts; and, besides, I don't see anything at all but the fog
and the water!"

"Oh, lawks, Master Bob!" screamed the frightened Dick in answer to this.
"Look t'other side and then you'll p'r'aps believe me. Look t'other
side! Look t'other side! I bees afeered! I bees afeered!"

Bob shifted his seat to windward, so as to get a better view forwards
and see what had alarmed Dick.

"Why, Dick, it's a ship!" he exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight the next
instant. "What you thought are angel's wings are the vessel's sails,
though they are angel's wings to us!"

"Be her a real ship, Master Bob?" asked Dick, having another peep at the
suspicious object and still not quite convinced as yet. "Sure-ly?"

"Of course she is, I tell you," cried Bob. "Look out now and let go the
jib-sheet as I luff up. I'm going to lay-to, for the ship is coming up
with us rapidly and will run us down if we don't take care!"

She was diminishing the distance between them quickly enough.

A big ship she looked, too, appearing all the larger from the
intervening veil of mist, which magnified her proportions wonderfully,
in similar fashion to the "Fata Morgana" seen sometimes in Italian
waters.

Like as in the same spectral phenomenon, too, this vessel seemed to be
gliding towards them without sound or apparent motion.

She was a veritable phantom of the deep!

There were no lights visible on her, nor did it look as if any one was
on the watch.

So far as the boys could judge from the ocular evidence before them,
there might really not have been a single soul on board.

But, whether that was the case or no, on she came steadily towards them
bow on, emerging bigger and bigger from the ghostly mist, each movement
sensibly affecting her and increasing her size