the laddering to have a look again at
the horizon to leeward over our port quarters, when I fancied, when
advancing a foot with the lamp-trimmer, I had seen something to the
southward.

In another instant my fancy became a certainty.

Yes, there, in the distance, sailing at an angle to our course, right
before the wind, was a large full-rigged ship. Everything, though, was
not right with her, as I noted the moment I made her out, with her white
canvas all crimson from a last expiring gleam of the afterglow; for I
could see that her sails were tattered and torn, with the ragged ends
blowing out loose from the boltropes in the most untidy fashion,
unkempt, uncared for!

Besides, she was flying a signal of distress, patent to every sailor
that has ever crossed the seas.

Her flag was hoisted half-mast high from the peak halliards. Half-mast
high!

I did not wait, nor did I want, to see anything further. No, that was
enough for me; and, springing on to the bridge with a bound that nearly
knocked poor old Greazer down on his marrowbones as he stopped to put
the lantern into the binnacle, I shouted out in a ringing voice that
echoed fore and aft, startling everybody aboard, even myself, "Sail ho!
A ship in distress! Sail ho!"

CHAPTER THREE.

DID I DREAM IT?

"Where away, Haldane?" cried Mr Fosset, the first to notice my shout,
catching up a telescope that lay handy on the top of the wheel-house of
the bridge; and, in his hurry, eagerly scanning every portion of the
horizon but the right one. "I don't see her!"

"There she is, sir, away to the right!" said I, equally flurried,
pointing over the lee rail in the direction where I had observed the
ship only a second before as I mounted the bridge-ladder, although I
could not actually make her out distinctly at the moment now, on account
of the smoke from our funnels, which, just then, came belching forth in
a thick, black cloud that streamed away to leeward, athwart our
starboard beam, obscuring the outlook.

"There away, sir; out there!"

"Well, I can't see anything!" ejaculated Mr Fosset impatiently, rising
to his feet after stooping down to the level of the bridge cloth, trying
to get a sight of the strange vessel as best he could under the cloud of
smoke, which was now trailing out along the horizon, blown far away to
leeward by the strong wind across our beam. "I'm sure I can't see
anything over there, youngster; you must have dreamt it!"

"Yes, w