the darkness ahead. Our companions, who had been awoke by our shouting,
lifted up their heads, but as the ship passed by, lay them down again,
probably under the belief that what they had seen was merely the effect
of their imagination.

La Motte remained awake. "What is the hour?" he asked. I told him. He
therefore insisted on my taking his place, though I saw that he had some
difficulty in unbending his limbs from the position they had assumed
while he was sleeping. In an instant I was asleep. It was daylight
when I was once more aroused to take the helm. I found that there was a
sail in sight, just rising above the horizon in the north-east, but we
could not tell in what direction she was standing.

The morning passed as had the former one. Our attention was kept awake
by watching the progress of the strange sail. Her topsails rose above
the horizon, then her courses appeared, and it became very clear that
she was sailing on a parallel course with us. At the distance we were
from her, we could not have been distinguished from the white crest of a
rising wave, so that we knew it was useless to hope for any assistance
from her. Trying, indeed, it was to watch her gliding by us.
Sometimes, when she rose on the top of a sea, and rolled from side to
side as she ran before the wind, we could see her copper glancing
brightly in the sunbeams, and could almost count her ports; yet we
ourselves, we knew, could scarcely have been seen, even had any on board
been looking out for us. On she went, her crew rejoicing in the fair
breeze which was carrying them on to their destined port, while we were
grieving at being driven away from ours.

"`It's an ill wind that blows no one good,' remember that, mates," said
La Motte. "We may get the fair breeze before long."

Scarcely had the stranger disappeared in the western horizon when
another sail rose in the east out of the water. We watched her even
with greater eagerness than before. We fancied that we could not again
be doomed to disappointment.

"She is more, I think, to the southward than the other ship," said
Andrews. "She'll pass not far to the nor'ard of us, and can't help
seeing us."

I watched the new-comer attentively, but could not agree with Andrews.
She appeared to me to be following exactly in the track of the former
vessel. I earnestly hoped that I might be wrong in my opinion. The
ship came on, rapidly overtaking us. We ought to have found caus