n.

"Not an inch less than one hundred and fifty miles, ma'am," answered the
skipper. "And if she brings the trades as far down with her as we've
done--which is doubtful--she can't reach the spot sooner than nine
o'clock to-morrow evening. So we've twenty-six hours the start of her
now, and I'm going to do my best to keep it."

The saloon was far too hot for the passengers to hold their usual
concert there that evening; they therefore adjourned to the deck, and
lounged there to the latest possible moment. It was a glorious night--
brilliant star-light with a young moon--the combined light enabling them
to just dimly make out here and there the hull and sails of one or
another of their companions in misfortune, the side-lights, green or red
according to the position of the vessel, gleaming brightly and throwing
long, wavering, tremulous lines of colour along the polished surface of
the water. On board one of these vessels, about a mile distant, someone
was playing a concertina--very creditably, too--and singing a favourite
forecastle ditty to its accompaniment; and it was surprising how softly
yet clearly the sounds were conveyed across the intervening space of
water. Singing and playing was also going on among the more distant
ships; but the sounds were too far removed to create the discord which
would have resulted had they been near enough to mingle.

On board the _Flying Cloud_ all was silent save for the persistent
"whistling for a breeze" in which Captain Blyth indulged, mingled with
the rustle and flap of the canvas overhead, and the patter of the reef-
points occasioned by the pendulum-like roll of the ship. The water was
highly phosphorescent; and the two children, carefully looked after by
Mr Gaunt, were delightedly watching from the taffrail the streams of
brilliant stars and haloes produced by the gentle swaying movement of
the ship's stern-post and rudder, when far down in the liquid crystal a
dim moon-like radiance was seen, which increased in intensity and
gradually took form as it rose upwards until it floated just beneath the
surface, its nature fully confessed by the luminosity which enveloped it
from snout to tail--an enormous shark! It remained under the ship's
counter, lazily swimming to and fro athwart the ship's stern, just long
enough to allow the rest of the passengers to get a good sight of it,
when it suddenly whisked round and darted off at a tremendous pace
toward one of the other sh