“I can’t see her,” said the skipper, looking in the direction the boatswain had indicated. “I thought she was close-to from your hailing her.”
“She’s further away now than I thought, sir!” shouted old Masters in reply to this, after having another squirm over the topsail yard. “I’m blessed, though, if I ain’t lost her, with the ship’s head bobbing all round the compass. No; there she be ag’in, sir. No—yes—yes. There she is, about a mile or so off, sir, I’m thinkin’.”
“By George, Masters, you think too much, I think!” the skipper retorted angrily. “You don’t seem to know what you’re saying, and I believe you’ve gone off your chump since you saw that ‘ghost-ship,’ as you called it! Go aloft, Haldane, and see what you can make of this blessed boat he says he sighted!”
I was already in the weather shrouds before the skipper gave me this order, and in another minute I was on the top beside the boatswain, who pointed out silently to me a little black speck in the distance apparently dancing about amid the waves, which were beginning to curl before an approaching breeze that was evidently springing up from the westwards. Fortunately, I had a pair of binoculars in my jacket pocket, and I immediately levelled the glasses at the object in view.
“Well, Haldane!” at last sang out the skipper impatiently from the end of the bridge, where he still stood, looking up at me with his chin cocked in the air. “What do you make it out to be, eh, my lad?”
“It’s a boat sure enough, sir,” I shouted down to him, without taking my eyes off it. “She’s a long way off, though, sir, and I think she’s drifting further away, too.”
“The deuce!” exclaimed Captain Applegarth. “Can you see any one in the boat?”
“No—no—not distinctly, sir,” I replied after another searching look. “Stay; I do—I do think there’s a figure at one end! and, yes—yes—I’m sure I noticed something that appeared like a movement, but it might have been caused by the rocking of the sea.”
“But don’t you see anybody, or can’t you make anything else out?”
“Only the boat, sir, and that a breeze seems coming up from the westward. I see a white line on the water along the horizon. That’s all I can see, sir!”