“Be her a real ship, Master Bob?” asked Dick, having another peep at the suspicious object and still not quite convinced as yet. “Sure-ly?”
“Of course she is, I tell you,” cried Bob. “Look out now and let go the jib-sheet as I luff up. I’m going to lay-to, for the ship is coming up with us rapidly and will run us down if we don’t take care!”
She was diminishing the distance between them quickly enough.
A big ship she looked, too, appearing all the larger from the intervening veil of mist, which magnified her proportions wonderfully, in similar fashion to the “Fata Morgana” seen sometimes in Italian waters.
Like as in the same spectral phenomenon, too, this vessel seemed to be gliding towards them without sound or apparent motion.
She was a veritable phantom of the deep!
There were no lights visible on her, nor did it look as if any one was on the watch.
So far as the boys could judge from the ocular evidence before them, there might really not have been a single soul on board.
But, whether that was the case or no, on she came steadily towards them bow on, emerging bigger and bigger from the ghostly mist, each movement sensibly affecting her and increasing her size; so that, presently, she became a monster ship.
She came too near to be pleasant, however, without sheering either to right or aft.