She was a two-masted steamer and, cut off by the play of reflected light, floated like a mirage between sky and sea. After studying her for a minute, Dick gave Jake the glasses. "It's a curious effect, but not uncommon on a day like this," he said. "She's like the big Spanish boats and has their tall black funnel." "She's very like them," Jake agreed. "There's no smoke, and no wash about her. It looks as if they'd had some trouble in the engine-room and she'd stopped." Dick nodded and glanced across the dazzling water towards the high, blue coast. He did not think the steamer could be seen from the land, and the launch would, no doubt, be invisible from her deck, but this was not important and he began to calculate how long it would take them to reach a point ahead. Some time later, he looked round again. The steamer was fading in the distance, but no smoke trailed behind her and he did not think she had started yet. His attention, however, was occupied by the headland he was steering for, because he thought it marked the neighborhood of their port. He spent an hour in the place before he finished his business and started home, and when they were about half-way across the bay the light began to fade. The sun had sunk and the high land cut, harshly blue, against a saffron glow; the sea was shadowy and colorless in the east. Presently Jake, who sat facing aft, called out: "There's a steamer's masthead light coming up astern of us. Now I see her side lights, and by the distance between them she's a big boat." Dick changed his course, because the steamer's three lights would not have been visible unless she was directly following him and the launch's small yellow funnel and dingy white topsides would be hard to distinguish. When he had shut out one of the colored side lights and knew he was safe, he stopped the engine to wait until the vessel passed. There was no reason why he should do so, but somehow he felt interested in the ship. Lighting his pipe, he studied her through the glasses, which he gave to Jake. "She's the boat we saw before," he said. "That's so," Jake agreed. "Her engines are all right now because she's steaming fast." Dick nodded, for he had marked the mass of foam that curled and broke away beneath the vessel's bow, but Jake resumed: "It looks as if her dynamo had stopped. There's nothing to be seen but her navigation lights and she's certainly a passenger boat. They generally glitter like a gin-saloon."