? Listen. We're His Majesty's destroyer_ Seapink, _out of
Devonport last October, and nothing particular the matter with us. Now
who are you?_"

"The _Mary of the Tower_, out of the Port of Rye on the day of Saint
Anne, and only two men--"

A gasp interrupted him.

"_Out of_ WHERE?" that voice that so strangely moved Abel Keeling said
unsteadily, while Bligh broke into groans of renewed rapture.

"Out of the Port of Rye, in the County of Sussex ... nay, give ear, else
I cannot make you hear me while this man's spirit and flesh wrestle so
together!... Ahoy! Are you gone?" For the voices had become a low murmur,
and the ship-shape had faded before Abel Keeling's eyes. Again and again
he called. He wished to be informed of the disposition and economy of the
wind-chamber....

"The wind-chamber!" he called, in an agony lest the knowledge
almost within his grasp should be lost. "I would know about the
wind-chamber...."

Like an echo, there came back the words, uncomprehendingly uttered, "_The
wind-chamber_?..."

"... that driveth the vessel--perchance 'tis not wind--a steel bow that
is bent also conserveth force--the force you store, to move at will
through calm and storm...."

"Can you make out what it's driving at?"

"Oh, we shall all wake up in a minute...."

"Quiet, I have it; the engines; it wants to know about our engines.
It'll be wanting to see our papers presently. Rye Port!... Well, no harm
in humouring it; let's see what it can make of this. Ahoy there!" came
the voice to Abel Keeling, a little more strongly, as if a shifting wind
carried it, and speaking faster and faster as it went on. "Not wind, but
steam; d'you hear? Steam, steam. Steam, in eight Yarrow water-tube
boilers. S-t-e-a-m, steam. Got it? And we've twin-screw triple expansion
engines, indicated horse-power four thousand, and we can do 430
revolutions per minute; savvy? Is there anything your phantomhood would
like to know about our armament?..."

Abel Keeling was muttering fretfully to himself. It annoyed him that
words in his own vision should have no meaning for him. How did words
come to him in a dream that he had no knowledge of when wide awake? The
_Seapink_--that was the name of this ship; but a pink was long and
narrow, low-carged and square-built aft....

"_And as for our armament,_" the voice with the tones that so profoundly
troubled Abel Keeling's memory continued, "_we've two revolving Whitehead
torpedo-tubes, three six-pou