“A light, Mr Chester. Where away?” said he rather anxiously.
“Here, sir,” I replied; “broad on our starboard quarter.”
He gazed steadfastly in the direction I had indicated for two or three minutes, and then turned away, saying,—
“You did quite right, my lad, to speak to me, but I really think you must have been mistaken. Why, if it had really been so, the stranger must have been close aboard of us; it would be impossible to see an ordinary light at a much greater distance than a hundred fathoms in such a fog as this; why, it is thick enough to cut with a knife, the old barkie can scarcely force her way through it.”
As he finished speaking I seemed to catch another glimpse of the light, just for a single instant, and I breathlessly exclaimed, “There it is again, sir!”
“I can see nothing,” he returned somewhat impatiently, after taking another long look. “Here, let us go round and examine the lookout men.”
Every man was found broad awake and keenly watchful, yet none of them had seen anything resembling a light, or indeed anything at all of a nature to lead them to suppose that there was another ship in close proximity to ourselves. I could not believe that my imagination had been playing me a trick, yet it required no very great penetration on my part to see that my superior thought but little of my assertion in comparison with the reports of the lookout men. We both returned to the spot from which we had started, and stood intently gazing to windward, until, for my part, I was almost ready to declare upon oath that the atmosphere was full of faint twinkling lights. The impression was beginning to force itself upon me that I had been making a fool of myself, and I was about to say so, when a faint and almost imperceptible sound seemed to float down to us out of the thick folds of impenetrable mist to windward.
“There, sir!” I exclaimed; “did you hear nothing then?”
“Why, to tell you the truth, Mr Chester, I half thought I did,” replied Sennitt; “but after all I believe it is only fancy; your imagination has infected my own, and if we stand here much longer we shall fancy a whole French fleet there to windward. Luckily it is eight bells,” he continued, consulting his watch by the light of the binnacle, “so we will turn the ship over to the care of a fresh set of eyes and ears. Let the watch be called as quietly as possible.”
This was done, and so completely had I already acquired that confidence which is conveyed in the expression “Let those look out who have the watch,” that, notwithstanding all my previous apprehensions, in another ten minutes I was fast asleep.