"Fore-top there!"
"Aye, aye, sir," replied Bill Badger and Zuares Barradas.
"Do you see anything, that you keep such a bright look-out to leeward, eh?'
"Yes, sir; there is something in sight," replied Zuares.
"Something; well, what is it?"
"The head o' the great sea-sarpent, I rayther reckons it to be," replied Bill Badger, impudently; "I sees his row o' grinders standing up above the water."
"Grinders, you Yankee swab," responded Mr. Quail (under his breath, however, for the fid-maul and a couple of iron marlinespikes were lying in the foretop, and one of these might fall out of it, by accident); "what you call grinders are the timber-heads of a piece of wreck—if not, I am as green as a cabbage! A piece of wreck in sight to leeward, sir," he reported down the skylight to Captain Phillips, who came promptly on deck, telescope in hand.
"Whereabouts, Mr. Quail?"
"There, sir; you can see it now under the leach of the forecourse, when the ship rises—can you make it out?'
"Wreck it is, Quail; the taffrail and sternpost of a vessel. Ease her off a bit, Pedro; edge down towards it," said the captain to the elder Barradas, whose strong hands grasped the handsome, brass-mounted wheel of the Hermione; "we are raising it fast."