that you have, very properly, kept away
to follow it. Surely," he continued, with an accent of impatience and
perplexity, "we have not been following some other craft that has hove
above the horizon since the darkness set in? And, even so, I can see
nothing of the craft herself. Obviously, however, we are nearing the
light--whatever it is--fast, for I can see it quite distinctly in the
glass, I even fancy that I can see it rising and falling. Take the
glass, Dugdale, and tell me what you can make of it."

I took the glass, and, after a long and patient scrutiny of the
mysterious light, pronounced my opinion.

"To me, sir," said I, "it has the appearance of an ordinary ship's
lantern wrapped in a strip of red bunting and hung from a pole, or
something of that sort. For, if you will look at it closely, you will
notice that it _sways_ with the wash of the sea, and now and then seems
to swing for an instant behind a slender object like a light spar. But
I could almost take my oath that there is no barque or any other kind of
craft there."

Once again Ryan took the telescope, and after a further prolonged
scrutiny, he exclaimed--

"By the powers, but I believe you are right, and if so we have been
done! It certainly _has_ very much the appearance that you describe.
But what in the world can it be? It is a moving object, beyond all
doubt, for see how we have been obliged to run off the wind in chase of
it! However, we are close to it now, for I can make out the swinging of
the lantern--and a lantern it _is_--with the naked eye. It is some
confounded contrivance for leading us astray, that is what it is! But
since we are so close to it, we may as well ascertain its character, if
only to be awake to the trick if it ever happens to be played upon us a
second time. Hands by the braces here, and stand by to back the
topsail. And get two or three lanterns ready to swing over the side, so
that we may see just exactly what the thing is."

We had by this time approached the mysterious object so nearly that
another three or four minutes sufficed to bring it within a couple of
hundred feet of the schooner's weather bow, when the topsail was laid to
the mast, and our way checked sufficiently to permit of a careful
examination of the thing, whatever it was. By the time that we had
forged ahead far enough to bring it on our weather beam it was close
aboard of us, and then the light of our lanterns disclosed the nature o