very two hours until we
had worked up to within sight of the cape, and then bearing up and
running off to leeward for a distance of one hundred miles again,
keeping a hand aloft on the main-royal yard as look-out from dawn to
dark. It was weary, anxious work; for of course our movements were
being regulated by a theory that, for aught we knew to the contrary,
might be all wrong; and as day succeeded day without bringing the
expected sail within our ken there were not wanting among us those who
denounced the skipper's plan as foolish, and argued that the proper
thing would have been to go direct to the Gaboon, and look there for the
_Virginia_. But Captain Perry, having carefully thought the whole thing
out, stuck to his guns, refusing to budge an inch from his original
arrangement, in response to the hints and insinuations of those who
disagreed with him. And the result proved the soundness of his theory,
for on the sixteenth day of our quest, about seven bells in the
afternoon watch, the look-out hailed the deck with:

"Large sail two points abaft the weather beam, steerin' to the west'ard
under stunsails!"

"How far away is she?" hailed the skipper.

"Her r'yals is just showin' above the horizon, sir," answered the man.

"Ah! that means that she is about twenty miles distant," remarked the
skipper to me--I being officer of the watch. "Too far off for
identification purposes, eh, Mr Fortescue?"

"Well, sir," answered I, "it is a longish stretch, I admit. Yet, with
your permission, I will get my glass, go aloft, and have a look at her."

"Thank you, Mr Fortescue. Pray do so, by all means," returned the
skipper.

Hurrying below for my own private telescope, which was an exceptionally
fine instrument, I slung it over my shoulder and wended my way aloft to
the main-royal yard.

"Whereabout is she, Dixon?" I asked, as I swung myself up on the yard
beside him. "Ah, there she is; I see her. Mind yourself a bit and let
me have a peep at her."

The man swung off the yard and slid down as far as the cross-trees,
while I unslung my glass and brought it to bear upon the stranger. The
rarefaction of the air bothered me a good deal, producing something of
the effect of a mirage, and causing the royals of the distant vessel to
stand up clear of the horizon as though there were nothing beneath them;
yet, as she rose and fell with the 'scend of the sea, shapeless snow-
white blotches appeared and vanished again ben