t as
well as he could by daylight.

Looking round and scanning our faces as well as he could in the
prevailing gloom, he soon perceived that something was wrong.

"Huh!" he exclaimed. "What's the row about?"

"There's no row, sir," explained the first mate in an off-hand tone of
bravado, which he tried to give a jocular ring to, but could not very
successfully. "This youngster Haldane here swears he saw a full-rigged
ship on our lee quarter awhile ago, flying a signal of distress; but
neither Mr Spokeshave, who was on the watch, nor myself, could make her
out where Haldane said he saw her."

"Indeed?"

"No, sir," continued Mr Fosset; "nor could the helmsman or old Greazer
here, who came up with the binnacle lamp at the time. Not one of us
could see this wonderful ship of Haldane's, though it was pretty clear
all round then, and we all looked in the direction to which he pointed."

"That's strange," said Captain Applegarth, "very strange."

"Quite so, sir, just what we all think, sir," chimed in Master
Spokeshave, putting in his oar. "Not a soul here on the bridge, sir,
observed anything of any ship of any sort, leastways one flying a signal
of distress, such as Dick Haldane said he saw."

"Humph!" ejaculated the skipper, as if turning the matter over in his
mind for the moment; and then addressing me point blank he asked me
outright, "Do you really believe you saw this ship, Haldane?"

"Yes, sir," I answered as directly as he had questioned me; "I'll swear
I did."

"No, I don't want you to do that; I'll take your word for it without any
swearing, Haldane," said the skipper to this, speaking to me quietly and
as kindly as if he had been my father. "But listen to me, my boy. I do
not doubt your good faith for a moment, mind that. Still, are you sure
that what you believe you saw might not have been some optical illusion
proceeding from the effects of the afterglow at sunset? It was very
bright and vivid, you know, and the reflection of a passing cloud above
the horizon or its shadow just before the sun dipped might have caused
that very appearance which you took to be a ship under sail. I have
myself been often mistaken in the same way under similar atmospheric
surroundings and that is why I put it to you like this, to learn whether
you are quite certain you might not be mistaken?"

"Quite so," shoved in Spokeshave again in his parrot fashion; "quite so,
sir."

"I didn't ask your opinion," growled