been awakened from a quiet "caulk"
by the awful portent, suddenly shouted out in a ringing voice, that
thrilled through every heart on board--

"Sail ho!"

Captain Applegarth and the rest of us on the bridge faced round again at
once.

"Where away, where away, my man?" cried the skipper excitedly. "Where
away?"

"Right ahead of us, sir," replied the man in an equally eager tone.
"And not half a cable's length away!"

"My God!" exclaimed old Masters, the boatswain, whose grey hair seemed
to stand on end with terror as we all now looked in the new direction
indicated and saw a queer ghost-like craft gliding along mysteriously in
the same direction as ourselves, and so close alongside that I could
have chucked a biscuit aboard her without any difficulty. "That there
be no mortal vessel that ever sailed the seas. Mark my words, Cap'en
Applegarth, that there craft be either _The Flying Dutchman_, as I've
often heard tell on, but never seen meself, or a ghost-ship; and--Lord
help us--we be all doomed men!"

CHAPTER SIX.

A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.

"Nonsense, man!" cried Captain Applegarth. "Don't make such an ass of
yourself! _Flying Dutchman_ indeed! Why, that cock and bull yarn was
exploded years ago, and I didn't think there was a sailor afloat in the
present day ass enough to believe in this story!"

"I may be a hass, sir; I know I am sometimes," retorted old Masters,
evidently aggrieved by the skipper speaking to him like this before the
men. "But, sir, seein' is believin'. There's this ship an' there's
that there craft a-sailin' alongside in the teeth o' the gale. Hass or
no hass, I sees that, captain!"

"Hang it all, man, can't you see that it is only the mirage or
reflection of our own vessel, produced by the light of the meteor
throwing her shadow on to the mass of cloud leeward? Look, there are
our two old sticks and the funnels between, with the smoke rushing out
of them! Aye, and there, too, you can see this very bridge here we're
standing on, and all of us, as large as life. Why, bo'sun, you can see
your own ugly mug reflected now opposite us, just as it would be in a
looking glass. Look, man!"

"Aye, I sees, sir, plain enuff, though I'm a hass," said Masters at
length. "But it ain't nat'rel, sir, anyhow; an' I misdoubts sich skeary
things. I ain't been to sea forty years for nothin', Captain
Applegarth, an' I fears sich a sight as that betokens some danger ahead
as 'ill happen to