"No," stammered the carpenter.
"What then?"
"A ship with all her canvas unbent."
"Unbent! that is strange," said Hartly, shading his eyes, and peering away to leeward.
"No—now, sir, she looks like a brigantine, or hermaphrodite brig, with her yards topped up in different ways."
"Do you wish your nightcap sent up to you, Tom?" said the mate, drily; "look again, perhaps she is the Flying Dutchman."
"Or the ghost of the Black Schooner," said one.
"Or a whale," added another.
But on nearing the edge of the ice-field—so close that we sent off the mate in the jolly boat with the warps, and handed our canvas, preparatory to resuming the war against the seals—we could all see the vessel which Hammer had discerned, lying among the ice about fifteen miles off, and various were the discussions on board as to her rig and nation. Even our oldest seamen were puzzled. Her hull was scarcely visible, so high were the hummocks around her. She had two masts, but her spars were, as Tom said, topped up in various ways and at various angles, and seemed covered by long-accumulated ice and snow, from which we augured that she had been long beset.
We hoisted our colours and displayed the private signal of Messrs. Manly and Skrew, but received no response, by which we supposed that she had been deserted by her crew, or that her signal halliards had given way.