amazing relic of figure-head, the clews of the sprit-sail and sprit-topsail pulling aslant—between being the men, a dismal, white and speechless company, with the thick fore-mast rising straight up out of the jumble of them, whilst the red western light flowed over the pallid edges of the canvas, that widened out to the crimson gold whose blaze stole into the darkened hollows this side and enriched the aged surfaces with a rosy atmosphere.

I stood right aft, carelessly running my eye along the sea-line that floated darkening out of the fiery haze under the sun on our weather-beam, till in the east it curved in a deep, blue line so exquisitely clear and pure that it made you think of the sweep of a camel's hair-brush dipped in indigo. I gazed without expectation of observing the least break or flaw in that lovely, darkling continuity, and 'twas with a start of surprise and doubt that I suddenly caught sight of an object orange-coloured by the light far down in the east, that is to say, fair upon our lee-quarter. It was a vessel's canvas beyond question; the mirroring of the western glory by some gleaming cloths; and my heart started off in a canter to the sight, it being impossible now for a ship to heave into view without filling me with dread of a separation from Imogene, and agitating me with other considerations, such as how I should be dealt with, on a ship receiving me, if they discovered I had come from the Flying Dutchman.

I waited a little to make sure, and then called to the second mate, who stood staring at God knows what, with unspeculative eyes.

"Herr Arents, yonder is a sail—there, as I point."

He quickened out of his death-like repose with the extraordinary swiftness observable in all these men in this particular sort of behaviour, came to my side, gazed attentively, and said, "Yes; how will she be heading?" He went for the glass, and whilst he adjusted the tubes to his focus Captain Vanderdecken arrived with Imogene.

"What do you see, Arents?" asked the captain.

"A sail, sir, just now sighted by Herr Fenton."

Vanderdecken took the glass and levelled it, and after a brief inspection handed me the tube. The atmosphere was so bright that the lenses could do little in the way of clarification. However, I took a view for courtesy's sake, and seemed to make out the square canvas and long-headed gaff-topsail of a schooner as the sails slided like the wings of a sea-bird along the swell.

"How doth she steer, mynheer?" said Vanderdecken, as I passed the telescope to Arents.

"Why," I answered, "unless the cut of her canvas be a mere imagination of mine, she is close-hauled on the larboard tack and looking up for us as only a schooner knows how."

"What do you call her?" he exclaimed, imperiously.

"A schooner, sir."

Whether he had seen vessels of that rig since their invention I could not know, but it was certain the word schooner conveyed no idea. It was amazing beyond language that hints of this kind should not have made his ignorance significant to him.

The sight of the amber shadow on the lee quarter put an expression of anxiety into Imogene's face. She stood looking at it in silence, with parted lips and shortened breathing, her fragile, her too fragile profile like a cameo of surpassing workmanship, against the soft western splendour, the gilding of which made a trembling flame of one side of the hair that streamed upon her back. Presently turning and catching me watching she smiled faintly, and said in our tongue, "The time was, dear, when I welcomed a strange sail for the relief—the break—it promised. But you have taught me to dread the sight now."

I answered, speaking lightly and easily, and looking towards the distant sail as though we talked of her as an object of slender interest, "If our friend here attempts to transfer me without you, I shall hail the stranger's people and tell them what ship this is, and warrant them destruction if they offer to receive me."

The time passed. Imogene and I continued watching, now and again taking a turn for the warmth of the exercise. As on the occasion of our pursuit by the Centaur, so now Vanderdecken stood to windward, rigid and staring, at long intervals addressing Arents who, from time to time, pointed the glass as mechanically as ever Vanderdecken's piping shepherd lifted his oaten reed to his mouth.

Shortly after six, arrived Van Vogelaar, who was followed by the boatswain, Jans; and there they hung, a grisly group, whilst the crew got upon the booms, or overhung the rail, or stood upon the lower ratlines, with their backs to the shrouds, suggesting interest and excitement by their posture alone, for, as to their faces, 'twas mere expressionless glimmer and too far off for the wild light in their eyes to show.

Thus in silence swam the Death Ship, heaving solemnly as she went, with tinkling noises breaking from the silver water that seethed from her ponderous bow, as though every foam bell were of precious metal and rang a little music of its own as it glided past. But by this time the sail upon our lee-quarter had greatly grown, and the vigorous red radiance, rained by the sinking luminary in such searching storms of light as crimsoned the very nethermost east to the black water-line, clearly showed her to be a small but stout schooner, hugging the wind under a prodigious pile of canvas, and eating her way into the steady breeze with the ease and speed of a frigate-bird that slopes its black pinions for the windward flight. Her hull was plain to the naked eye and resembled rich old mahogany in the sunset. Her sails blending into one, she might, to the instant's gaze, have passed for a great star rising out of the yellow deep and somewhat empurpled by the atmosphere. It was our own desperately sluggish pace that made her approach magical for swiftness; but there could be no question as to the astonishing nimbleness of her heels.

After a while, Vanderdecken and his men warmed to the sight, and fell a-talking to one another with some show of eagerness, and a deal of pointing on the part of Jans and Arents, whilst Van Vogelaar watched with a hung head and a sullen scowl. Occasionally, Vanderdecken would direct a hot, interrogative glance at me; suddenly he came to where we stood.

"What do you make of that vessel, mynheer?" said he.

"Sir," I replied, "to speak honestly, I do not like her appearance. Two voyages ago my ship was overhauled by just such another fellow as that yonder; she proved to be a Spanish picaroon. We had a hundred-and-fifty troops who, with our sailors, crouched behind the bulwarks and fired into her decks when she shifted her helm to lay us aboard, and this reception made her, I suppose, think us a battle-ship, for she sheared off with a great sound of groaning rising out of her, and pelted from us under a press as if Satan had got hold of her tow-rope."

"What country does her peculiar rig represent?" he asked, looking at the vessel with his hand raised to keep the level rays of the sun off his eyes.

"I cannot be sure, mynheer; French or Spanish; I do not believe her English by the complexion of her canvas. She may prove an American, for you may see that her cloths are mixed with cotton."

The word American seemed to puzzle him as much as the word schooner had, for in his day an American signified an Indian of that continent. However, I noticed that if ever I used a term that was incomprehensible to him, he either dismissed it as coming from one who did not always