It was curious.
For, at that very moment, when the first mate and Spokeshave and the helmsman and lamp-trimmer, standing on the bridge beside me, one and all said they could see nothing, I declare to you I saw not only the ship and the figures on her deck, but I noticed that the girl on the poop waved a scarf or handkerchief, as if imploring our assistance; and, at the same time, the dog near her bounded up against the bulwarks, and I can solemnly assert from the evidence of my ears that I heard the animal distinctly bark, giving out that joyous sort of bark with which a well-dispositioned dog invariably greets a friend of his master or mistress.
I could not make it out at all.
It was most mysterious.
“Look, look, Mr Fosset!” I cried excitedly. “There she is now! There she is, coming up on our lee quarter! Why, you must be all blind! I can not only see the ship distinctly, but also right down on to her deck!”
“Nonsense, boy; you’d better go below!” said the first mate brusquely, while Spokeshave sniggered and whispered something to the lamp-trimmer and man at the wheel that made them both laugh out right. “There’s something wrong with you to-night, Haldane, for you seem quite off your chump, so you’d better go below and sleep it off. There’s no ship near us, I tell you! What you imagined to be a sailing vessel is that dark cloud there, coming up from the leeward, which is fast shutting out the horizon from view. It’s a sea fog, such as are frequently met with hereabouts below the Banks, as we are now!”
It was true enough about the cloud, or mist, or fog, or whatever it was; for, as Mr Fosset spoke, the darkness closed in around us like a wall and the ship that I swear I had seen the moment before vanished, sky and sea and everything else disappearing also at the same instant, leaving us, as it were, isolated in space, the veil of vapour being impenetrable!