pointed out, "Not a sight of a sail, nor a
light, nor nothink!"

It was curious.

For, at that very moment, when the first mate and Spokeshave and the
helmsman and lamp-trimmer, standing on the bridge beside me, one and all
said they could see nothing, I declare to you I saw not only the ship
and the figures on her deck, but I noticed that the girl on the poop
waved a scarf or handkerchief, as if imploring our assistance; and, at
the same time, the dog near her bounded up against the bulwarks, and I
can solemnly assert from the evidence of my ears that I heard the animal
distinctly bark, giving out that joyous sort of bark with which a well-
dispositioned dog invariably greets a friend of his master or mistress.

I could not make it out at all.

It was most mysterious.

"Look, look, Mr Fosset!" I cried excitedly. "There she is now! There
she is, coming up on our lee quarter! Why, you must be all blind! I
can not only see the ship distinctly, but also right down on to her
deck!"

"Nonsense, boy; you'd better go below!" said the first mate brusquely,
while Spokeshave sniggered and whispered something to the lamp-trimmer
and man at the wheel that made them both laugh out right. "There's
something wrong with you to-night, Haldane, for you seem quite off your
chump, so you'd better go below and sleep it off. There's no ship near
us, I tell you! What you imagined to be a sailing vessel is that dark
cloud there, coming up from the leeward, which is fast shutting out the
horizon from view. It's a sea fog, such as are frequently met with
hereabouts below the Banks, as we are now!"

It was true enough about the cloud, or mist, or fog, or whatever it was;
for, as Mr Fosset spoke, the darkness closed in around us like a wall
and the ship that I swear I had seen the moment before vanished, sky and
sea and everything else disappearing also at the same instant, leaving
us, as it were, isolated in space, the veil of vapour being
impenetrable!

CHAPTER FOUR.

A CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY.

Just then Captain Applegarth appeared on the scene.

He had gone down by the companion-way into the saloon below, after Mr
Fosset had left the poop, to look at the barometer in his cabin, and now
came along the upper deck and on to the bridge amidships, startling us
with his sudden presence.

The skipper had a sharp eye, which was so trained by observation in all
sorts of weather that he could see in the dark, like a cat, almos