“He has sent me for his night-glass,” answered; “there is a big ship coming up astern.”
“O-ho!” cried they, and emptying the bowls of their pipes, they fled like startled deer on to the poop.
I found the glass—a binocular—and ran with all my might with it to the mate, who, as he took it from me, said, “That’s right. You’re a smart boy!” a piece of commendation which so inspirited me that, I believe, had he told me to go up to the main-royal-yard, I should have promptly and comfortably have made my way to that great height.
The sight I had been the first to descry was, indeed, well worth watching. The speed of our own ship through the water, though she was under very small canvas, could not have been less than nine knots in the hour, yet the vessel astern grew upon us as though we were in tow of one of our own quarter-boats, and scarcely moving. She showed pale as the watery moon dimly glancing through a body of vapour.
“She is dead in our wake,” the chief mate said, as though talking to himself. “Does she see us, I wonder? Heavens alive! what is she under—skysails can it be? It’s enough to make one think oneself in a dream.”
I saw him send a glance towards the companion-hatch, as though he had a mind to call the captain.
“THE VESSEL ASTERN GREW UPON US.”