All around lay only the sea and the dazzling sky. Not even a porpoise or flying fish broke the surface of the water which was placid save for the long swells over which the Mirabelle dipped her white sails. The color ebbed from the sky as if drained from some celestial bowl, and in the place of the scarlets and turquoise, the clear yellows and the plums, came a deep blue that was the forerunner of a fine clear night.
Chris turned slowly, his glass to his eyes, searching the edge of what was now their world, and especially the line where the sea and sky meet.
All at once, as if a white dagger had stabbed the rim of the ocean, white sails grew upward against the encroaching night, and Chris found what he had been looking for.
"There sir!" he cried, pointing to the distance, and the Captain and Mr. Finney swung their glasses to where his finger led, far astern of the Mirabelle.
Captain Blizzard's round cheerful face hardened as he looked, and Mr. Finney's lugubrious countenance seemed positively despairing, while Amos hopped on one foot crying: "Leave me look through your glass, Chris! What do you see? What is it you-all see?"
It was Captain Blizzard who answered him.
"We see the Venture, Amos, Claggett Chew's ship, coming up fast astern. Let us all pray that the wind holds."