stay where you are a little longer, if you please,
Mr Courtenay."

"Ay, ay, sir!" answered I, settling myself more comfortably upon the
yard. And while the words were still upon my lips the stagnant air
about me once more stirred, the great spaces of canvas beneath me
swelled sluggishly out with a small pattering of reef-points from the
three topsails, and a gentle creak of truss and parrel, as the strain of
the filling canvas came upon the yards; and I saw the brightening disc
of the sun begin to sweep round until it bore broad upon our larboard
quarter. Then some sharp words of command from the poop, in Mr
Hennesey's well-known tones,--dulcet as those of a bullfrog with a bad
cold,--came floating up to me, followed by the shrill notes of the
boatswain's pipe and his hoarse bellow of, "Hands make sail!" A few
minutes of orderly confusion down on deck and on the yards below me now
ensued, and when it ceased the _Althea_ was running square away before
the languid but slowly strengthening breeze, with studding-sails set on
both sides.

Meanwhile the log was gradually clearing, for it was now possible to see
to a distance of fully three lengths of the ship on either hand, before
the curling and sweeping wreaths of vapour shut out the tiny dancing
ripples that seemed to be merrily racing the ship to port and starboard.
Occasionally a break or clear space in the fog-bank swept down upon and
overtook us, when it would be possible to see for a distance of a
quarter of a mile for a few seconds; then it would thicken again and be
as blinding as ever. But every break that came was wider than the one
that preceded it, showing that the windward edge of the bank was rapidly
drawing down after us; and as these breaks occurred indifferently on
either side of, or sometimes on both sides at once, with now and then a
clear space right astern to give a spice of variety to the proceedings,
my eyes, as may be guessed, were kept pretty busy.

At length an opening, very considerably wider than any that had thus far
reached us, came sweeping down upon our starboard quarter, and as I
peered into it, endeavouring to pierce the veil of fog that formed its
farther extremity, I suddenly became aware of a vague shape indistinctly
perceptible through the intervening wreaths of mist that were now
sweeping rapidly along before the steadily freshening breeze. I saw it
but during the wink of an eyelid, when it was shut in again, but I knew
at onc