I saw!" I thought to myself.

"Is the young lady slight in figure, and has she long golden-coloured
hair hanging loose about her head, sir?" I eagerly asked, almost
breathless in my excitement. "And, tell me too, did she have a large
black Newfoundland or retriever dog by her side that same evening, sir?"

Colonel Vereker seemed even more astonished by this question of mine
than I had been by his reply to Captain Applegarth the moment before.

"My brave young sir," said he, using this somewhat grandiloquent form of
addressing me, I suppose, in remembrance of the slight service I had
done him by swimming with the line to the drifting boat when we picked
up him and his companion. "My little Elsie is tall and slight for her
age, and her hair is assuredly of a golden hue, ah, yes! like liquid
sunshine; though, how you, my good young gentleman, who, to my
knowledge, can _never_ have seen her face to face in this life, can know
the colour of her hair or what she is like, I must confess that passes
my comprehension!"

"But the dog, sir?"

"That is stranger still," remarked Colonel Vereker. "I had forgotten to
mention that I brought with me on board the _Saint Pierre_ from my old
home at Caracas a splendid Russian wolf-hound, as faithful a creature as
my poor negro servant Cato. His name is Ivan, and he is now, I
sincerely hope and trust, guarding my little darling girl, as I would
have done if I had remained with her, for not a living soul would dare
to touch her with him there. Ivan would tear them limb from limb first.
He is a large greyish-black dog, with a rough shaggy coat, and in reply
to your enquiry, I must tell you he _was_ on the poop of the ship, by
the side of my child, at the very time that she declared she saw that
steamer, which I, myself, could not see anywhere!"

For the moment I was unable to speak. I was so overcome at this
unexpected confirmation of the sight I had seen on that eventful Friday
night, though I had afterwards been inclined to disbelieve the evidence
of my own senses, as everybody else had done, even the skipper at last
joining in with the opinion of Mr Fosset and all the rest, save the
boatswain, old Masters. Yes, yes; every one them imagined that I had
dreamt of "the ghost-ship" as they called my vision, and that I had not
seen it at all!

But this statement from the colonel absolutely staggered the skipper,
and he looked from me to the American and back again at me in the mo