ipper had no means of
ascertaining the time, it being too intensely dark to permit of his
reading the face of his watch even when it was held close to his eyes,
though he made two or three unsuccessful attempts to do so; but, anxious
and impatient as he was for the dawn, he knew that it must be at least
another hour, perhaps nearer two, before he could reasonably expect its
appearance. Two hours more of sickening suspense! One hundred and
twenty minutes! With the weather in such a threatening state what might
not happen in the interval! If he could only have obtained an
occasional glimpse of the compass, or if the night had been less
opaquely dark he would not have cared so much. For in the one case he
would have been enabled not only to keep a mental reckoning of his own
course, but also that of the chase as well, and to follow her
attentively no matter how capricious the breeze; whilst in the other
case he might have stood some chance of catching a momentary glimpse of
her. As his reflections took this turn he stooped and looked ahead
under the foot of the sail; looked more intently; rubbed his eyes, and
looked again. What was it he saw? A light--lights? Yes, surely; it
must be so, or were those faint luminous specks merely illusory and a
result of the over-straining of his visual organs due to the intensity
of his gaze into the gloom? No; those feebly glimmering points of light
were stationary; they maintained the same fixed distance from each
other, and he could count them--one, two, three--half a dozen of them at
least, if not more, he could not be certain, for they were so very
faint. What could it mean? Was there a whole fleet of ships down there
to leeward? That there was _something_ was an absolute certainty; and
as it seemed an impossibility that it could be anything else it was only
reasonable to conclude that it must be a ship or ships. At all events
there could be no question as to the course he ought to follow; it would
be worse than folly to continue in pursuit of an invisible ship with
those lights in comparatively plain view only a couple of points on his
lee-bow. So the skipper bore away until the faint luminous spots opened
out just clear of the heel of the long yard--which, it will be
remembered, was bowsed down close to the deck--and there he resolutely
kept them, the wind having by this time fallen so light that it was
necessary for him to make frequent sweeps with the steering-oar in