Flash after flash came in rapid succession, vivid, green, and ghastly, and with each they could all see the stranger, whom they neared fast, and made out to be a brig with her topmasts gone, her canvas split to ribbons. Bobbing up and down, she was visible only for an instant at a time, and chill fell on all who saw her, for she was evidently an old wreck, with no living being on board of her, though a dead man was seen lashed in the starboard main-shrouds, and three other corpses were dangling from lashings in the foretop.
No sound or cry came from that ghostly craft as the Amethyst swept past her within a few yards of her stern, just as one more than usually vivid flash showed her distinctly, with her torn rigging all hanging in bights and loops, the dead-lights shipped in her cabin windows, and her name painted in white letters underneath them.
"Could any of you make out her name?" asked Captain Talbot, as the flash passed away, and the wreck seemed to vanish, when the thunder burst fearfully overhead.
"I did, sir," replied Derval.
"You are very clever, Hampton. Did anyone else make it out? I should like to be sure, for the log-book."
There was no reply from anyone else, and Derval was silent, for he had a choking sensation in his throat.
"I should like to have some other warrant for her name, ere I put it in the log, than Mr. Derval Hampton's," sneered Rudderhead.
"And what did you make out her name to be?" asked Talbot.
"The North Star," replied Derval, for such was indeed the name he had seen.
"What?" roared Rudderhead, in a voice that startled all. "It is a lie—a horrid lie! He could not have made it out in this obscurity."