The captain's fuzzy brows met portentously.
"Ay! Very early! So early that the watch never saw her go. He must have missed an hour and she must have gained one."
"It's rather strange, isn't it?" I said—"May I come on the bridge?"
"Certainly."
I ran up the little steps and stood beside him, looking out to the farthest line of sea and sky.
"What do you think about it?" I asked, laughingly, "Was she a real yacht or a ghost?"
The captain did not smile. His brow was furrowed with perplexed consideration.
"She wasn't a ghost," he said—"but her ways were ghostly. That is, she made no noise,—and she sailed without wind. Mr. Harland may say what he likes,—I stick to that. She had no steam, but she carried full sail, and she came into the Sound with all her canvas bellying out as though she were driven by a stormy sou'wester. There's been no wind all night—yet she's gone, as you see—and not a man on board heard the weighing of her anchor. When she went and how she went beats me altogether!"
At that moment we caught sight of a small rowing boat coming out to us from the shore, pulled by one man, who bent to his oars in a slow, listless way as though disinclined for the labour.
"Boat ahoy!" shouted the captain.