I found myself on the deck of a small vessel, whose shape resembled that of a box rather than that of a ship. She had two masts, across which were stretched sheets of patched and discoloured canvas. On the top of the hinder mast was a small red streamer, surmounted by a little brass ship that shone like a ray of white fire in the air as it pointed with its red streamer attached directly in the path along which the brig was being steered. The planks of the deck were dark, and every object that the eye rested upon suggested dirt and neglect. I remarked a boat painted white standing upside down near a little wooden house like a sentry-box, whose roof was pierced by a chimney from which a trail of dark smoke was blowing over the bows. I gazed earnestly at that boat; it seemed a familiar object to me; all else was strange--the tall masts, the wide-spread sails, the straight black lines of rigging, the dingy green paint of the bulwarks, the twenty details of rope hanging in coils, of pumps, of skylight, and I know not what else, for how should a woman be able to give names to the strange furniture of the sea? All else was new. I searched my dark mind, and the picture of this brig sailing along with the wind blowing over her stern into her dingy wings was as novel as though she were the only vessel in the world, and I was beholding her for the first time. But the boat seemed familiar. I could not take my eyes off it for some minutes. Why should this be? I asked; and then my sightless memory began to struggle, and I addressed the young Frenchman, who stood at my side, for the relief to be found in speech. ‘I seem to have seen that boat before.’ ‘Impossible, madame.’ ‘What does the lady say?’ exclaimed Captain Regnier, who leaned against the bulwarks with his hands in his pockets opposite me. Alphonse repeated my words. The large fat man pulled one hand out of his pocket to emphasise his speech with gestures. ‘My uncle says no. You cannot remember that boat,’ said the young Frenchman. ‘He has owned this brick twenty years, and the boat is twenty years old, and in all that time she has belonged to the brick.’ ‘Why, then, should she seem familiar to me?’ He reflected, and then put his forefinger to the side of his nose. ‘I think I know. We took you out of a boat; all your sufferings were in a boat; the idea of a boat has been burnt in upon your mind by pain and misery; and now when you see a boat you cry out--“Ah! surely I know her.” You will say that of any boat. It is a very good sign. I say it is a very good sign that you should think you know that boat.’ He then volubly addressed his uncle, who nodded, and grunted, and shrugged, and appeared to agree.