I crossed the deck and saw two large stars of light on the sea-line almost directly ahead. Even whilst I gazed they sensibly enlarged. The sun at this time was hanging on the left of them, and his light was on the water between, flashing every headlong ridge into silver, and silvering the sea-smoke till it flew down the wind with the gleam of a silken veil; and beyond this rushing splendour of silver sea, softened here and there by the shadows of the sailing clouds, hung those two glowing stars, steady as though they were fixed in the heavens. Captain Burke let fall the glass from his eye and said to Mr. Owen, 'An ocean race.' 'Yachts?' said the doctor. 'Bless me no. Clippers rushing it for a wager. If this was the other end of the year they'd probably prove tea-ships. It should be a fine sight,' he cried, anticipation and spirit working his face into something of its old merry, eager look. We were ourselves sailing fast, and the two ships were coming along faster perhaps by two or three miles in the hour than we were going; in a magically short time they were two defined shapes upon the bow about a quarter of a mile apart, black spots under brilliant clouds showing like shapes of white flame through the windy blue dazzle trembling into the atmosphere they were coming through. The sailors dropped their several tasks to look; the surly mate stared with a fixed devouring leer; all hands I guessed understood what they were to see; the cook stepped from the galley to the rail. In less than half an hour from the moment of our sighting them they were abreast, and when they were right abeam this one hid the other, so completely were they neck and neck. By this time our own ship's number was flying at our peak, and now as they came abreast, each having told us by a thin tongue of flag that our colours had been spelt out, they hoisted their own names. 'An Aberdeen clipper and a Blackwall liner,' said Captain Burke, reading out of a signal book. 'Both from an Australian port. A very pretty race indeed. But it's the spirit of Souchong that puts life into that sort of thing.'