It was most mysterious.
"Look, look, Mr Fosset!" I cried excitedly. "There she is now! There
she is, coming up on our lee quarter! Why, you must be all blind! I
can not only see the ship distinctly, but also right down on to her
deck!"
"Nonsense, boy; you'd better go below!" said the first mate brusquely,
while Spokeshave sniggered and whispered something to the lamp-trimmer
and man at the wheel that made them both laugh out right. "There's
something wrong with you to-night, Haldane, for you seem quite off your
chump, so you'd better go below and sleep it off. There's no ship near
us, I tell you! What you imagined to be a sailing vessel is that dark
cloud there, coming up from the leeward, which is fast shutting out the
horizon from view. It's a sea fog, such as are frequently met with
hereabouts below the Banks, as we are now!"
It was true enough about the cloud, or mist, or fog, or whatever it was;
for, as Mr Fosset spoke, the darkness closed in around us like a wall
and the ship that I swear I had seen the moment before vanished, sky and
sea and everything else disappearing also at the same instant, leaving
us, as it were, isolated in space, the veil of vapour being
impenetrable!