re we passed a
stray scrap of gulf-weed with its long yellow filaments spread out like
fingers vainly clutching at the wavelets, as if imploring them to be
still, or where again the dense black smoke from our funnels made a
canopy in the sky athwart our track, obscuring the shimmering surface of
the deep with a grim path of shadow that checked the mirth of the
lisping young wavelets and even awed the sunshine when it came in closer
contact anon, as the wind waved it this way and that at its will.

"Hi, bo'sun!" shouted out the skipper presently, after carrying on like
this for a goodish spell, the deck working beneath our feet and the
_Star of the North_ seeming to be flying through water and air alike by
a series of leaps and bounds, quivering down to her very kelson with the
sustained motion and the ever-driving impulse of her masterful engines
spurring her onward. "How is she going now, eh?"

Old Masters was away aft on the poop hauling in the patent log, which
had been hove over the side on our beginning the run, and the next
minute, as soon as he was able to look at the index of the instrument,
he answered the skipper's question.

"Sixteen knots, sir!" he sang out, and then we could hear the old sea
dog add his customary comment, whether of approval or discontent, "Well,
I'm blowed!"

"By George, colonel!" cried Captain Applegarth to our melancholy-looking
guest at his side. "We're going sixteen knots, sir; just think of that!
I didn't believe the dear old barquey had it in her!"

"It is a good, wonderful speed, captain," replied the other, who, I
noticed, was looking even more exhausted now than when we removed him
from the boat. "Remember, though, sir, the _Saint Pierre_ is sailing on
all this time before the wind, as she was this morning, and must be
miles ahead of us!"

"Aye, I know she's going; or at least, I suppose so, and I've made every
allowance for that in my calculation of her whereabouts," returned our
skipper, in nowise daunted by the colonel's argument. "But if she had
every rag set that she could carry, she couldn't go more than three or
four knots at the most, in this light breeze; and for every foot she
covers we're going five!"

"That is true," said the American, with a very weary and absent look on
his face. "But--but I'm afraid we may be too late after all! I--I'm--
God protect--my--my--"

"The fact is, my dear sir," cried the skipper abruptly, interrupting him
as the other hesi