w!" answered another, "she's a ship right enough. Look at the weed
and barnacles on her sides when she heaves. Only where in Christ's name
are her crew?"

"Yes," said a third, "and how could she win through all the secret
channels without a pilot?"

"What use would be a pilot," said a fourth, "if there are none to work
the rudder and shift the sails? Do I not know, who am of the trade?"

"At least she is coming straight to the quay," exclaimed a fifth,
"though what sends her Satan alone knows, for the tide is slack and
this wind would scarce move a sponge boat. Stand by with the hawser, or
she'll swing round and stave herself against the pier."

So they talked, and all the while the great galley drifted onward with
a slow, majestic motion, her decks hid in shadow, for a sail cut off the
light of the low moon from them. Presently, too, even this was gone,
for the veil of cloud crept again over the moon's face, obscuring
everything.

Then of a sudden a meteor blazed out in the sky, such a meteor as no
living man had ever seen in Venice, for the size of it was that of the
sun. It seemed to rise out of the ocean to the east and to travel very
slowly across the whole arc of the firmament till at last it burst with
a terrible noise over the city and vanished. While it shone, the light
it gave was that of mid-day, only pale blue in colour, turning all it
touched to a livid and unnatural white.

It showed the placid sea and fish leaping on its silver face half-a-mile
or more away. It showed the distant land with every rock and house and
bush. It showed the wharf and the watchers on it; among them Hugh noted
a man embracing his sweetheart, as he thought under cover of the cloud.
But most of all it showed that galley down to her last rope and even the
lines of caulking on her deck. Oh, and now they saw the rowers, for they
lay in heaps about the oars. Some of them even hung over these limply,
moving to and fro as they swung, while others were stretched upon
the benches as though they slept. They were dead--all dead; the wind
following the meteor and blowing straight on shore told them that they
were certainly all dead. Three hundred men and more upon that great
ship, and all dead!

Nay, not all, for now on the high poop stood a single figure who seemed
to wear a strange red head-dress, and about his shoulders a black robe.
Straight and silent he stood, a very fearful figure, and in his hand a
coil of rope. The sight of hi