She was evidently burning a “flare-up” to attract attention, and, ere the light waned, I noticed that her yards were all a cock-bill and her sails and rigging torn and disordered; while, stranger still, she had her flag astern hoisted half-mast high—the French tricolour, too!
Both the boatswain and I, simultaneously, involuntarily, uttered a cry of dismay.
The vessel in sight was the very identical ship I had seen three nights before, flying the same signal of distress; and here she was now, sailing, as then, four points off our weather bows and eight before the wind, which was, as I’ve already said, blowing a light breeze from the southward and westward.
What new calamity did this second appearance of the “ghost-ship,” as the old boatswain called her, portend to all of us?
Aye, what, indeed!
Time alone could tell.