ll put a boat's crew ashore
there with boat, harpoons, lines, a stock of provisions, and two or
three hundred empty barrels, just to try their luck, like, for a month
or so, and go away on a cruise, coming back for 'em in due time, and
often finding 'em with every barrel full. Perhaps yon craft is up to
something of that sort."

"It may be so," returned Captain Staunton. "Indeed in all probability
it _is_ so if our eyes have not deceived us. At all events, whatever
she is, we are pretty sure of a hearty welcome, and even a not over
clean whaler will be a welcome change for all hands, and especially for
the ladies, from this boat, particularly now that the provisions are
getting low. And I have no doubt I shall be able to make arrangements
with the captain to carry us to Valparaiso with as little delay as
possible."

"Ay, ay," returned Bowles, "I don't expect there'll be much trouble
about that. I only hope we shall be able to get alongside her. I
wouldn't stand on too long on this tack if I was you, sir. My opinion
is that she's coming this way, and if so we ought to tack in good time
so as not to let her slip past us to windward or across our bows. Good-
night, sir!"

The night being so fine, and with so little wind, Captain Staunton took
the tiller himself, and ordered the rest of the watch to lie down again;
there was nothing to do, he said, and if he required their assistance he
would call them. Accordingly, in a very short time, he was the only
waking individual in the launch, the others were only too glad of the
opportunity to forget, as far as possible, their miseries in sleep.

It is, of course, scarcely necessary to say that the skipper, as he sat
there keeping his lonely watch, fixed his gaze, with scarcely a moment's
intermission, on that part of the horizon where the mysterious object
had been seen. He allowed a full hour to pass, and then drawing out the
glass, applied it to his eye, sweeping the horizon carefully from dead
ahead round to windward. He had not to seek far, for when the tube of
the telescope pointed to within about three points of the starboard bow
a small dark blot swept into the field of view. Yes, there it was,
quite unmistakably this time, and a single moment's observation of it
satisfied the anxious watcher that he saw before him the royals and
topgallant-sails of a vessel apparently of no very great size.

The fact that the stranger's topgallant-sails had risen above th