ough, although we were going ten knots good by the aid
of the wind that had worked round more abeam, so that all our fore and
aft sail drew, while the ship, which, when I saw her before, seemed to
be running with the nor'-easter and sailing at a tangent to our course
so that she ought really to have increased her distance from us, now, on
the contrary, appeared ever so much nearer, as if she had either altered
her helm or drifted closer by the aid of some ocean current in the
interim; albeit, barely five minutes at the best, if that, had only
elapsed since I first sighted her.

But, stranger still, Mr Fosset could not see her, when there she was as
plain as the sun setting in the west awhile ago--at least to my eyes;
and, as she approached nearer yet in some unaccountable way, for her
bows were pointed from us and the wind, of course, was blowing in the
opposite direction, she being on our lee, I declare I could distinctly
see a female figure, like that of a young girl with long hair, on the
deck aft; and beside her I also noticed a large black dog, jumping up
and down!

"I'm sure I can't see any ship, youngster," said Mr Fosset at the
moment. Even while he was actually speaking, I observed the sailing
vessel to yaw in her course, her ragged canvas flattening against the
masts as if she were coming about, although from the way her head veered
about, she did not seem to be under any control. "There's nothing in
sight, Haldane, I tell you. What you perhaps thought was a ship is that
big black cloud rising to the southward. It looks like one of those
nasty sea fogs working up, and we'll have to keep a precious sharp look-
out to-night, I know."

"There's no ship there," echoed my friend "Conky," tapping his forehead
in a very offensive way to intimate that I had "a screw loose in the
upper storey," as the saying goes, grinning the while as I could see
very well in the dim light and poking his long nose up in the air in
supreme contempt. "The boy is either mad, or drunk, or dreaming, as you
say, sir. It is all a cock and a bull yarn about his sighting a vessel,
and he only wants to brave it out. There's no ship there!"

"Can you see anything, Atkins?" asked Mr Fosset of the man steering.
"There away to leeward, I mean."

"No, sir," answered the sailor; "not a speck, sir."

"Do you see anything, lamp-trimmer?"

"No; can't say I does, sir," replied old Greazer, after a long squint
over our lee in the direction