It was the second officer’s watch on deck; he was sitting trimming his nails on the grating abaft the wheel, when the man who was steering, pointing to the horizon a few points before the port beam, asked him if he could see anything black there. The second officer not having very good sight, stared awhile and declared that he saw nothing; then, going forward, called to a man in the main-top to tell him if there was anything to be seen on the port beam. The man, shading his eyes, sang out that he could see a black object, but whether it was a boat or a piece of wreck he couldn’t say. Whereupon Mr. Anderson stepped to the companion-hatchway, took down the glass, and, having adjusted it to his sight, levelled it. “By thunder!” he cried, keeping the glass to his eye, “it’s a boat--and there’s a mast, and a lug-sail--and something black at the mast head. But the de’il a soul can I make out aboard of her.” He had another good look, and then, tucking the glass under his arm, went below. In about three minutes’ time he returned, followed by a small stout man with a good-humoured face, and a grave, middle-aged gentleman with a long black beard. “There, sir; there she is yonder!” said Mr. Anderson, incapable of seeing her with his naked eye, but concluding that she must still be where he had at first sighted her, and willing to obtain the credit of a good sight by a simple device. “I see something black,” said the grave gentleman. “Give us the glass!” exclaimed the short man, who was the skipper, and applied the telescope to his eye. “It is certainly a boat,” he observed, after a bit; “but I don’t see anybody moving in her. What’s that black thing at the mast-head? Is it a signal?” He turned to the man at the wheel: “Starboard your helm. Mr. Anderson, trim the yards. Yonder may be some perishing human beings.” The whisper soon went through the vessel that there was a boat in sight; the watch below turned out of their hammocks and came on deck; and soon the forecastle was lively with a crowd of hands gazing earnestly at the boat, which the alteration in the barque’s course now made distinguishable, and speculating as to the people who were on board of her. “She looks to me like a ship’s quarter-boat,” said the skipper, with his eye to the glass. “The sheet of the sail is to windward, and she’s driving bodily to leeward. What in the name of conscience is the meaning of that black flag at the mast-head?” They neared her rapidly, but were puzzled to discover no living thing stirring in her, for though it was perfectly true that the sail had not been dipped, she had all the appearance of being manned. The water was so calm that the barque was able to run almost alongside the boat. There was a rush to the vessel’s side, and then, as the boat was passed at a distance of forty or fifty feet, cries rose from the forecastle: “There’s a man in the stern-sheets!” “Do you see him, sir, lying with his head under the aftermost thwart?”