"It was Captain Frisbee who saw the ship. And the spot where he saw her, made by dead reckoning, is set down here. It was three in the afternoon, and the wind was blowing from the southwest. Captain Frisbee told me these things himself," said Tom Horn. "I went to him and asked. And he judged that the gale was blowing at seventy miles an hour, and held so until nightfall on the following day, when it had blown itself out. That gives twenty-seven hours of wicked weather, the wind blowing into the east by north all the time. "With that body of wind," the clerk went on, "and that number of hours, a ship without masts or sails can be figured to have been driven so many leagues. And my calculations show me that when the storm fell the _Rufus Stevens_ lay at or near this spot on the ocean's water," and he picked the place out on the paper with his finger, "at or near this spot, which is south of the Azores, and on the inner rim of the great circle. And being so situated, and without help," said Tom Horn, "nothing can prevent her from drifting into the Grassy Sea." "Could it not be," said Christopher Dent, "that she might have settled into some other current after the wind fell, and so floated away in another direction?" "One whole year I drifted in the _William and Mary_," said Tom Horn. "Each day of that year I marked down in a book, and underneath I wrote what I saw in the sea and in the sky. The _William and Mary_ was a good ship, but misfortune touched her. Time has told me that it was not the misfortune of chance; men had to do with it; there was a purpose in it; but what, or how, I could never contrive. The ship was down by the head when they left her; they desired me to get into a boat with the second mate, Ezra Hardy, who was a plain, honest man. But I said I would stay with the ship. And that boat, with all who were in her, was never heard of again." "And the others?" asked Christopher Dent. "The boat of the captain was a strong one," said Tom Horn. "And so was the first mate's. They lived: oh, yes, that was seen to. They lived buoyantly through the storm." "Do you say," and mademoiselle's voice shook, "that you refused to leave the ship because you believed the second mate's boat was meant to go down?" "First," said Tom Horn, "I desired to remain with the cargo while there was a chance of saving it. Second," and he whispered this, "it was as you say." "Now, God save us!" said Christopher Dent in horror. "God in His Heaven save us!" "I watched the sea all that day," said the clerk, "and I listened through the night; for it was heavy in my mind that the captain and first mate would return. For I knew the men who were in their boats,--hardy, desperate, unsparing men,--and I feared for my life." "They did not return!" said the little apothecary. "Oh, no, I trust not! I dread to think otherwise."