we
proved his keen vision, watching the big cutter, for such she was,
heading, not for Plymouth, but for the nearer coast. But this was not
the only strange thing about her course, for when she had made some few
hundred yards towards the coast, she jibbed round of a sudden, with an
appalling wrench at the horse; and there being, as it appeared, no hand
either at the peak halyards or the throat halyards, the mainsail
presently showed a great rent near the luff, while the foresail had
torn free from the bolt-ropes of the stay, and was presenting a sorry
spectacle as the yacht went about, and away towards France again.

Such a display of seamanship astounded our men.

"Close haul, you lubbers; close haul!" roared Dan, in the vain delusion
that his voice would be heard a quarter of a mile away. "Keep down yer
'elm and close haul--wash me in rum if he ain't comin' up again, and
there she goes right into it. Shake up, you gibbering fools; luff her a
bit and make fast. Did ye ever see anythin' like it this side of a
Margit steamer?"

The skipper said nothing, but as the yacht luffed right up into the
wind again, he groaned as a man who is hurt. Piping Jack looked
sorrowful too, and said, almost with tears in his eyes--

"Axin' yer pardon, sir, but hev you got a pair of eyes in your head
which can make out anything unusual aboard there?"

"They're a queer lot, if that's what you mean, and they haven't got
enough seamanship amongst them to run a washing tub. Is there anything
else you make out?"

"A good deal, sir; and look you, there ain't a living soul on her deck,
or may I never see shore again."

"By all that's curious, you're right. There isn't a man showing!"

"'Bout ship," roared the skipper, and every man ran to his post, while
I touched Captain York on the shoulder and pointed to the seemingly
deserted and errant yacht.

But the skipper's eyes were not those of a ground-gazer; he needed no
aid from me; what others had seen, he had seen, and he nodded an
affirmative to my unspoken question.

"What do you think it means?" I asked, as we came up into the wind, and
the men were belaying after close hauling for the beat; "are they
hiding from us, or is she deserted?"

But the only answer I got was the one word "Rum," uttered with a jerky
emphasis, and taken up by Dan, who said--

"Very rum, and a good many drunk below, or I don't know the taste of
it."

The obvious thought that the yacht we had sought and ru