The wind served well for this new course, and the boat sped on. But when the sun had sunk the strange ship could no more be seen, for the bright yellow afterglow was speedily obscured by a gray sea-mist.
Earlier on that same day they had observed that the sea was plentifully strewn with tufts of sea-weed, and below their boat, when they had looked over the gunwale and peered down into the depths of the water, they had seen dense forests of marine growth thickly entangled, and many thousands of jelly-fish and other denizens of the deep.
Jacob Hartop had shown more interest and concern in this fact than any of his companions.
"'Tis for all the world like what I have seen many times in the Sargasso Sea," said he. "And yet it cannot surely be that we have come so far to the westward as that."
But as the evening wore on and the water became yet more densely full of living things, he shook his head gravely and murmured a wish that they had turned back towards the Azores. "For," said he, "if it be that we are on the fringe of the Sargasso Sea there is no knowing what may befall us."
"And prithee, Jacob, what manner of dangers do you fear?" questioned Edward Webbe. "Sure there can be no peril in sailing over a forest of harmless sea-weeds."
"'Twas in the Sargasso Sea that I lost my ship," said Jacob. "I know the place full well, and never do I wish to be back in it again. Hast never heard of it, Ned?"
Webbe shook his head and smiled as he answered:
"Mayhap I have heard the name. But it seemeth to me that we are now in the Atlantic Ocean; and if thou dost declare that we are nigh unto any other sea, why, I can only believe that thou art dreaming."
"Well do I know that we are in the Atlantic," returned Hartop, "though a good piece farther to the westward than we had intended. But you must know that this Sargasso Sea of which I speak, is itself a part of the Atlantic—and a part which all wise mariners do avoid. 'Tis in places naught but a solid mass of sea-weed, so dense as to support the weight of a man, yea, even of a ship. Once within its confines, 'tis rare that a vessel doth ever escape; and most men who have been through it will tell you strange and marvellous tales of hideous monsters with hundreds of arms, that dart out and entwine in their grip of death all who come within their venomous reach."