"No, sir."
The watch officer gazed through his night glass in the direction indicated, but was unable to pick up a light of any sort. The "Long Island" was plunging through a great gale, which she was taking head on. White-tipped seas, backed by solid walls of water were sweeping the bridge more than forty feet above the level of the sea. Even the red-haired boy clinging to the rail far above the bridge was now and again nearly swept from his feet by the rush of water that enveloped him.
A sixty-mile gale was sweeping the Atlantic seaboard, with the wind shrieking weirdly through the huge cage masts, whose tops were lost in the darkness above the ship itself. Every man on deck was clinging to stanchion and rail in momentary danger of being swept overboard.
"You must have been mistaken," shouted the watch officer.
"No, sir. It was a light all right, sir," shouted Sam Hickey in a confident tone.
"What did it look like?"
"It looked like a shooting star, sir."
"What was it?"
"It was a shooting star, sir."
A half articulated exclamation of disgust from the officer on the bridge reached the ears of the lookout.