Time passed until the little clock marked the hour of midnight, but no one could say how far that might be out of the way until when the sun rose next morning.
Vance no longer had any anxiety of mind; the motion of the craft had caused slumber to visit his eyelids, and the rolling and plunging was to him like the rocking of a cradle.
Ned and Roy were both standing at the wheel with their eyes fixed upon the inky blackness outside, when, as if she had come from the depth of the ocean, the huge hulk of a ship or steamer loomed directly in front of them, the lights on deck showing indistinctly the forms of several men near the rail.
Had their lives depended upon it, neither could have so much as moved a finger during that awful time when it seemed sure they were to be run down.
Both clutched the spokes of the wheel, but without turning it, and stood like statues, staring through the window until the huge mass disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and the darkness seemed all the more intense because of having been partially dispelled for an instant.
While one might have counted twenty the boys remained silent and motionless after the stranger passed, and then Ned said in the tone of a person who speaks in his sleep:
“If she had been twenty feet nearer we should have been crushed like an egg-shell!”
“And perhaps those on board would hardly have known what had been done. I can’t understand why she didn’t see our lights.”
“I don’t suppose they make much of a show on a small craft like this. It was a danger I had never thought about, and now I shall be expecting an accident of that kind until daylight comes once more.”
“I don’t think we are likely to have more than one such adventure in a night, but if it should come we would be powerless. I’ve put some coffee on to boil, and think you and I had better have a cup.”