Suddenly Stirling ceased speaking and strode to the rail, glancing keenly under the shelter of his right palm.
"Speck in sight!" he called. "Looks like a ship headed this way! Make it out, Cushner?"
The second mate strained his eyes, then mopped them with his sleeve and tried again. "Not yet," he said. "You have fine sight. Where away?"
"About two points off the bow. There she is. See her? A brig, I think. See the smoke?"
Cushner nodded with a sudden jerk of his chin. "Just a smudge. She's hull down!"
It was a full half hour later before Stirling made out the Japanese flag which fluttered at the stern of the brig. He called out her nationality then swung and glanced toward the poop and the wheelman. Marr stood under the shelter of the rail with both elbows resting upon the canvas and a pair of twelve-diameter glasses focused ahead. He lowered these glasses, reached for the engine-room telegraph, and the throbbing of the Pole Star's screws died to a quiver. The yards were braced back and the whaler came up into the wind with scant headway. This brought the Japanese brig upon the starboard waist.
The funnel of the strange ship belched forth a volcano of smoke which could come only from Japanese coal. She wallowed across the sea and came up into the wind on the same tack as the Pole Star was headed.
A longboat was dropped awkwardly. Seamen to the number of four swarmed overside and waited for a fifth figure to descend a ladder lowered for his benefit. The boat sheered from the brig and danced across the waves under the swing of four oars which were smartly handled.
Penyan Maru was the name Stirling made out on the brig as it hove to a double cable's length away. A greater contrast to the Pole Star could not have been fashioned. Built in Japan before the war, the brig still carried some of the top-hamper which rightly belonged to a junk. Her yards were canted, her masts sloped forward instead of aft, her standing rigging was loose and weather-rotted.
Along the rail of the Penyan Maru ran a line of pigeon-blue boats which were too large for dories, too small for whaleboats. She bore the unmistakable evidence of a Japanese sealer, a vampire of the sea—as much an object of suspicion to every revenue cutter as a jailbird would be to a self-respecting policeman.