“What do you make her out, Mr Black?” asks the frigate’s captain of his first, as the two stand looking through their levelled glasses.
“Not anything, sir,” replies the lieutenant; “except that she should be Chilian from her colours. I can’t see a soul aboard of her. Ah, yonder! Something shows over the taffrail! Looks like a man’s head! It’s down again—ducked suddenly.”
A short silence succeeds, the commanding officer, busied with his binocular, endeavouring to catch sight of the thing seen by his subordinate. It does not appear again.
“Odd!” says the captain, resuming speech; “a ship running up signals of distress, at the same time refusing to be relieved! Very odd, isn’t it, gentlemen?” he asks, addressing himself to the group of officers now gathered around; who all signify assent to his interrogatory.
“There must be something amiss,” he continues. “Can any of you think what it is?”
To this there is a negative response. They are as much puzzled as himself—mystified by the strange barque, and more by her strange behaviour.
There are two, however, who have thoughts different from the rest—the third lieutenant, and one of the midshipmen. Less thoughts than imaginings; and these so vague, that neither communicates them to the captain, nor to one another. And whatever their fancies, they do not appear pleasant ones; since on the faces of both is an expression of something like anxiety. Slight and little observable, it is not noticed by their comrades standing around. But it seems to deepen, while they continue to gaze at the becalmed barque, as though due to something there observed. Still they remain silent, keeping the dark thought, if such it be, to themselves.
“Well, gentlemen,” says the commanding officer to his assembled subordinates, “I must say this is singular. In all my experience at sea, I don’t remember anything like it. What trick the Chilian barque—if she be Chilian—is up to, I can’t guess; not for the life of me. It cannot be a case of piracy. The craft has no guns; and if she had, she appears without men to handle them. It’s a riddle all round; to get the reading of which, we’ll have to send a boat to her.”
“I don’t think we’ll get a very willing crew, sir,” says the first lieutenant jestingly. “Forward, they’re quite superstitious about the character of the stranger. Some of them fancy her the Flying Dutchman. When the boatswain pipes for boarders, they’ll feel as if his whistle were a signal for them to walk the plank.”
The remark causes the captain to smile, as also the other officers; though two of the latter abstain from such cheerful demonstration—the third lieutenant and midshipman, already mentioned, on both of whose brows the cloud still sits, seeming darker than ever.