and until the vessel had become indistinct by reason
of the space we put between us, we watched that great creature clutched
to the old hull, as it might be a limpet to a rock.

Presently, when it was broad day, some of the men began to rouse up, and
in a little we broke our fast, which was not displeasing to me, who had
spent the night watching. And so through the day we sailed with a very
light wind upon our larboard quarter. And all the while we kept the
great waste of weed upon our starboard side, and apart from the mainland
of the weed, as it were, there were scattered about an uncountable
number of weed islets and banks, and there were thin patches of it that
appeared scarce above the water, and through these later we let the boat
sail; for they had not sufficient density to impede our progress more
than a little.

And then, when the day was far spent, we came in sight of another
wreck amid the weeds. She lay in from the edge perhaps so much as the
half of a mile, and she had all three of her lower masts in, and her
lower yards squared. But what took our eyes more than aught else was a
great superstructure which had been built upward from her rails,
almost half-way to her main tops, and this, as we were able to
perceive, was supported by ropes let down from the yards; but of what
material the superstructure was composed, I have no knowledge; for it
was so over-grown with some form of green stuff--as was so much of the
hull as showed above the weed--as to defy our guesses. And because of
this growth, it was borne upon us that the ship must have been lost to
the world a very great age ago. At this suggestion, I grew full of
solemn thought; for it seemed to me that we had come upon the cemetery
of the oceans.

Now, in a little while after we had passed this ancient craft, the night
came down upon us, and we prepared for sleep, and because the boat was
making some little way through the water, the bo'sun gave out that each
of us should stand our turn at the steering-oar, and that he was to be
called should any fresh matter transpire. And so we settled down for the
night, and owing to my previous sleeplessness, I was full weary, so that
I knew nothing until the one whom I was to relieve shook me into
wakefulness. So soon as I was fully waked, I perceived that a low moon
hung above the horizon, and shed a very ghostly light across the great
weed world to starboard. For the rest, the night was exceeding quiet, so
tha