"There is a strange craft not far from us, sir," I answered; "and Mr Perry considered that you should be apprised of the fact. We know nothing whatever about her, except that she is there; for the night is so intensely dark that we have been unable to catch the faintest glimpse of her, but we have just heard them strike two bells aboard her. We have not struck our own bell, sir, thinking--" "Yes, of course, quite right," interrupted the skipper, as he landed with a soft thud on the floor of his state-room. "Tell Mr Perry that I'll be on deck in a brace of shakes." He followed close at my heels up the companion ladder, having paused only long enough to slip into his nether garments, and came groping blindly out on deck. "Phew!" he muttered, as he emerged from the companion; "it's as dark as the inside of a cow. Where are you, Mr Perry?" "Here I am, sir; close alongside you," answered the first luff, stretching out his hand and lightly touching the skipper's arm. "Yes," he continued, "it certainly _is_ dark, unusually so; so dark that I am in hopes of keeping our presence a secret from the fellow out yonder until you shall have decided what is to be done." "Mr Fortescue tells me that you have not seen anything of him thus far," remarked the captain. "Whereabout is he, and how far off, do you reckon?" "Somewhere away in that direction," indicated the lieutenant, with a flourish of his arm. "As to the distance--well, that is rather difficult to judge. Sound travels far on such a night as this; but I should say that the craft is not more than half a mile distant, or three-quarters, at the utmost." "Um!" commented the captain meditatively. "I suppose it is not, by any chance, the craft which we are after, which has slipped out of the river in the darkness, eh?" "I should scarcely think so, sir," answered Perry. "A man would literally have to be able to find his way about blindfolded to attempt to run out of the river on such a night as this. No, I am inclined to think that it is some inward-bound craft, becalmed like ourselves. We caught the sound of some order spoken on board her when we first became aware of her presence, and Mr Fortescue here was of opinion that the words used were Spanish, although the distance was too great to enable us to distinguish just what was said."