was as much the thought of this reward going from them as curiosity that had sent the watch on deck aloft too to have a look. The last of them was coming down hand over hand as I went forward. Discipline was forgotten in the excitement of such a moment as this, and swabs and squiligees had been flung down without a word of rebuke from Cutbill, whose business it was to superintend the washing of the decks. I sprang into the foreshrouds, and was presently alongside the lookout fellow. ‘Give me hold of that glass,’ said I. To the naked eye up here the sail hung transparently visible upon the edge of the sea, a point of lustrous white like the head of a marble obelisk lustrous with the silver of sunrise. But the telescope made a deal more of that dash of light than this. I threw a leg over the yard, steadied the glass against the mast, and instantly witnessed the white canvas of what seemed unquestionably a large schooner-yacht risen to her rail upon the horizon where the thin black length of her swam like an eel with the fluctuations of the refractive atmosphere; but all above was the steady brilliant whiteness of the cloths of the pleasure ship mounting from boom to gaff; a wide and handsome spread with a flight of triangular canvas hovering between jibboom and topmast, as though a flock of seafowl were winging past just there. ‘Do you know the “Shark”?’ said I to the man. ‘I’ve seen her once or twice at Southampton, sir.’ ‘Is that she, think you?’ ‘Ay, sartin as that there water’s salt.’ ‘Well, there’ll be good pickings for you on the mainmast,’ said I, handing him back the glass. His face seemed to wither up between his whiskers to the incredible wrinkles of the smile which shrunk it to the aspect of an old dried apple. I got into the rigging and descended to the deck. The sailors stared hard at me as I went out. I suppose they imagined that I was well acquainted with the ‘Shark,’ and they eyed my countenance with a solicitude that was almost humorous. Finn stood near the main rigging perspiring with impatience and anxiety, fanning his long face with his cap and sending glances in the direction of the sea, where presently those two alabaster-like spires now hidden would be visible. ‘Is it the “Shark,” think ’ee, sir?’ he cried in a breathless way. ‘My good Finn, how the dickens should I know? I know no more of the “Shark” than of Noah’s Ark. But, seeing that the vessel we want is a schooner of some two hundred tons, of a fore and aft rig, bound our way, and a yacht to boot, then, if yonder little ship be not the chap we are in search of, this meeting with her will be an atrociously strange coincidence.’ ‘Just what I think, sir,’ he cried, still breathless. ‘Do you mean to shift your helm for her?’ ‘She was abeam when first sighted, sir. I have brought her on the bow since then, as ye can see. But I’ll head straight if ye should think proper,’ he exclaimed with a look aloft and around.