rn Cross higher
and higher, till we were somewhere about latitude 30 deg., and
longitude 175 deg. E.

"I came on deck to the relief at four o'clock one morning: the weather
was quiet, a pleasant breeze blowing off the starboard beam; our ship
was barque-rigged, with short, topgallant masts--Cape Horn fashion;
she was thrusting through it leisurely under topsails and a
maintopgallantsail, and the whole Pacific heave so cradled her as she
went that she seemed to sleep as she sailed.

"Day broke soon after five, and as the light brightened out I caught
sight of a gleam on the edge of the sea. It was as white with the
risen sun upon it as an iceberg. I levelled the glass and made out the
topmast canvas of a small vessel. There was nothing to excite one in
the spectacle of a distant sail. The barque's work went on; the decks
were washed down, the look-out aloft hailed and nothing reported, and
at seven bells the crew went to breakfast, at which hour we had risen
the distant sail with a rapidity that somewhat puzzled the captain and
me. For, first of all, she was not so far off now but that we could
distinguish the lay of her head. She looked to be going our way, but
clearly she was stationary, for the _Swan_, which was the name of our
barque, though as seaworthy an old tub as ever went to leeward on a
bowline, was absolutely without legs: nothing more sluggish was ever
afloat; for _her_ then to have overhauled anything that was actually
under way would have been marvellous.

"'Something wrong out there, Grainger?' said the captain.

"'Looks to me to be all in the wind with her,' I answered.

"'Make out any colour?' said the captain.

"'Nothing as yet,' said I.

"'Shift your helm by a spoke or two,' said he. 'Meanwhile, I'll go to
breakfast.'

"He was not long below. By the time he returned we had risen the
distant vessel to the line of her rail. I got some breakfast in the
cabin; on passing again through the hatch I found the captain looking
at the sail through the telescope.

"'She is a small brig,' said he, 'and she has just sent the English
colours aloft with the jack down. She is all in the wind, as you said.
Her people don't seem to know what to do with her.'

"She now lay plain enough to the naked sight; a small black brig of
about a hundred and eighty tons, apparently in ballast as she floated
high on the water. She, like ourselves, carried short topgallantmasts,
but the canvas she showed consisted of no