"Where away, Haldane?" cried Mr Fosset, the first to notice my shout,
catching up a telescope that lay handy on the top of the wheel-house of
the bridge; and, in his hurry, eagerly scanning every portion of the
horizon but the right one. "I don't see her!"
"There she is, sir, away to the right!" said I, equally flurried,
pointing over the lee rail in the direction where I had observed the
ship only a second before as I mounted the bridge-ladder, although I
could not actually make her out distinctly at the moment now, on account
of the smoke from our funnels, which, just then, came belching forth in
a thick, black cloud that streamed away to leeward, athwart our
starboard beam, obscuring the outlook.
"There away, sir; out there!"
"Well, I can't see anything!" ejaculated Mr Fosset impatiently, rising
to his feet after stooping down to the level of the bridge cloth, trying
to get a sight of the strange vessel as best he could under the cloud of
smoke, which was now trailing out along the horizon, blown far away to
leeward by the strong wind across our beam. "I'm sure I can't see
anything over there, youngster; you must have dreamt it!"
"Yes, when you were lolling about in the waist below there, just now,"
put in my friend, Master Spokeshave, who had been pretending to look-out
from his end of the bridge because he thought he ought to do so as Mr
Fosset was there, although he really couldn't possibly see anything aft
from that position on the port side, on account of the wheel-house and
funnel, which were of course abaft the bridge, blocking the view. The
cantankerous little beggar sniffed his beak of a nose in the air as if
trying to look down on me, though he was half a head shorter, and spoke
in that nasty sneering way of his that always made me mad. He did enjoy
growling at any one when he had the chance; and so he went on snarling
now, like a cat behind an area railing at a dog which couldn't get at it
to stop its venomous spitting. "I saw you, my joker, star-gazing down
there, instead of coming up here to relieve me at the proper time! I
believe you only sang out about the ship to cover your laziness and take
a rise out of us!"
"I did nothing of the sort, Mr Spokeshave," I answered indignantly, for
the little beast sniggered away and grinned at Mr Fosset as if he had
said something uncommonly smart at my expense. I saw, however, where
the shoe pinched. He was angry at my having kept him waiting for his
tea, and hence his spiteful allusion to my being late coming on watch;
so I was just going to give him a sharp rejoinder, referring to his love
for his little stomach, a weak point with him and a common joke with us
all below at meal-times, when, ere I could get a word out of the
scathing rebuke I intended for him, the smoke trail suddenly lifted a
bit to leeward and leaving the horizon clear, I caught sight again of
the ship I had seen over the rail. This, of course, at once changed the
current of my thoughts; and so, without troubling my head any further
about "Conky," I sang out as eagerly as before to the first mate, all
the more anxious now to prove that I had been right in the first
instance, "There she is, Mr Fosset, there she is!"
"Where on earth are you squinting now, boy?" said he, a bit huffy at not
making her out and apparently inclined to Spokeshave's opinion that I
had not really seen her at all. "Where away?"
"There, sir, away to leeward," cried I, almost jumping over the bridge
rail in my excitement. "She's nearly abreast of our mizzen chains and
not a mile off. She seems coming up on the port tack, sir!"
For, strangely enough, 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 pointed out, "Not a sight of a sail, nor a
light, nor nothink!"
It was curious.
For, at that very moment, when the first mate and Spokeshave and the
helmsman and lamp-trimmer, standing on the bridge beside me, one and all
said they could see nothing, I declare to you I saw not only the ship
and the figures on her deck, but I noticed that the girl on the poop
waved a scarf or handkerchief, as if imploring our assistance; and, at
the same time, the dog near her bounded up against the bulwarks, and I
can solemnly assert from the evidence of my ears that I heard the animal
distinctly bark, giving out that joyous sort of bark with which a well-
dispositioned dog invariably greets a friend of his master or mistress.