s the southernmost of the two; it has a reddish gleam
almost like a ship's port light."

"Yes," replied the skipper, "I see them. You mean those, do you not?"
pointing to them.

"Ay, ay, sir; them's the two. Now look at the horizon, just half-way
between 'em, and tell me if you can see anything."

The skipper looked long and steadfastly in the desired direction, and at
length raised the telescope to his eye.

"By Jove, Bowles, I believe you are right," he at length exclaimed
eagerly. "There certainly is a something away there on the horizon, but
it is so small and indistinct that I cannot clearly make it out. Do you
think it is either of the other boats?"

"No, sir, I don't," answered Bowles. "If it's anything it's a ship's
royals. If 'twas one of the boats, she'd be within some five miles of
us for us to be able to see her at all, and at that distance her sail
would show out sharp and distinct through the glass. _This_ shows, as
you say, so indistinctly that it must be much more than that distance
away, and therefore I say that if it's anything it's a ship's royals."

The skipper took another long steady look through the telescope, and
then closing it sharply, said--

"There is undoubtedly _something_ astern of us, Bowles, and under the
circumstances I think we shall be fully justified in hauling our wind
for an hour or two in order to satisfy ourselves as to what it really
is."

Mr Bowles fully concurred in this opinion, and the boat was accordingly
at once brought to the wind, what little there was of it, on the
starboard tack, which brought the object about two points on her weather
bow.

"If it is indeed a ship, Bowles," observed Captain Staunton when the
boat's course had been changed and the mate was preparing to "go below,"
as he phrased it, "we have dropped in for a rare piece of luck, for, to
tell you the plain truth, I had no hope whatever of falling in with a
craft of any description about here. She will be a whaler, of course,
but she is a long way north of the usual fishing-grounds, isn't she?"

"Well," returned Bowles meditatively, "you can never tell _where_ you
may fall in with one of them chaps. They follows the fish, you see;
sometimes here, sometimes there; just where they think they'll have the
best chance. Then, I have heard say that sometimes, if they happen to
hit upon a particularly likely spot, such as a small uninhabited island,
where there's a chance of good sport, they'