Chapter Twenty Nine.
On board our old ship—Her voyage through eastern seas.
The doctor awoke Mr Griffiths to tell him the good news. He at once hove the boat to. We sat eagerly watching the stranger. She could not possibly at present see us, and might alter her course before she came near enough to do so. Her topsails rose above the horizon, then in a short time her courses were seen, and then her hull itself as she came on swiftly before the breeze. I saw Mr Griffiths several times rub his eyes, then he stood up and looked fixedly at her.
“Brown,” he said, “did you ever see that ship before?”
“Well, I was thinking that the same sail-maker cut her topsails that cut the Intrepid’s; but there’s no wonder in that,” answered Brown.
“What do you say to that white patch in the head of her foresail?” asked the mate. “It looks to me like one we put in when we were last at the Sandwich Islands. To be sure it’s where the sail is likely to get worn, and another vessel may have had one put in like it, still, the Intrepid’s foresail had just such a patch as that.”
“What! Do you mean to say that she’s the Intrepid?” exclaimed the doctor, interrupting him.
“I mean to say that she’s very like her, if she’s not her,” answered the mate.