Was there any other Jones in the
town who owned a small sloop and dealt largely in cured fish? Yes there
was, and he was a regular gallow's-bird, if all reports were true, the
coxswain told him.

The traveller did not press the subject long. Having brought it up as
it were incidentally, he dismissed it carelessly, and again concentrated
his attention and interest on the lifeboat.

To all the men with whom he conversed this bluff man with the keen grey
eyes put the same question, and he so contrived to put it that it seemed
to be a matter of comparatively little interest to him whether there was
or was not a man of the name of Jones in the town. Nevertheless, he
gained all the information about Jones that he desired, and then, hiring
a boat, set out for the floating light.

The weather, that had appeared threatening during the night, suddenly
became calm and fine, as if to corroborate the statement of the waiter
of the Fortress Hotel in regard to its uncertainty; but knowing men in
oilcloth sou'westers and long boots gave it as their opinion that the
weather was not to be trusted. Fortunately for the traveller, it
remained trustworthy long enough to serve his purpose. The calm
permitted his boat to go safely alongside of the light-ship, and to
climb up the side without difficulty.

The vessel in which he found himself was not by any means what we should
style clipper-built--quite the reverse. It was short for its length,
bluff in the bows, round in the stern, and painted all over, excepting
the mast and deck, of a bright red colour, like a great scarlet dragon,
or a gigantic boiled lobster. It might have been mistaken for the first
attempt in the ship-building way of an infatuated boy, whose
acquaintance with ships was founded on hearsay, and whose taste in
colour was violently eccentric. This remarkable thing had one immense
mast in the middle of it, supported by six stays, like the Norse galleys
of old, but it had no yards; for, although the sea was indeed its home,
and it incessantly braved the fury of the storm, diurnally cleft the
waters of flood and ebb-tide, and gallantly breasted the billows of
ocean all the year round, it had no need of sails. It never advanced an
inch on its course, for it had no course. It never made for any port.
It was never either homeward or outward bound. No streaming eyes ever
watched its departure; no beating hearts ever hailed its return. Its
bowsprit never pointed eit