A six-knot breeze was blowing next morning but the sun did not show himself, and noon having come with the sky still cloudy, the Captain was compelled to figure out his position by dead reckoning, which is not so accurate as a solar observation. He calculated that if everything went well, the tug should not be far from the _Neptune_ at the end of twenty-four hours, providing his estimates of the brig’s drift were correct. The afternoon wore on, and the skipper and his cousin had paced the narrow deck for some moments in silence, when the former remarked meditatively, “I had a queer experience with a derelict once,—just after I took this tug.” “How was that?” asked Albert. The captain finished filling his pipe with fragments of tobacco which he cut from a plug, and continued: “It was about two years ago that I received orders to go after the derelict bark _Pegasus_. She had sailed from a Nova Scotia port for the West coast of Ireland with one million feet of deals aboard, and after being abandoned in a big blow was sighted several times. I’m a sinner if we didn’t cruise twenty-five hundred miles and use up half our coal when, on the twelfth day out as I came on deck, my mate said to me, “Captain, there’s a lame duck two points on the port bow.” (We seamen often speak of a crippled vessel as a lame duck.) Well, we’d run that bark down at last, and we lost no time in getting her in tow. After towing her two days, what do you think happened?” “The hawser parted?” “She sank—went right down—and I went back to port the most disgusted man in Philadelphia. We found, after we got in, that a steamer passing the wreck and considering her dangerous to navigation had set fire to her; but after burning the main deck nearly through, and a hole in the stern, the fire had been put out, probably by the seas which the bark shipped. This was only a couple of days before we sighted her. While we had her in tow I noticed that a good deal of lumber washed out every time a big sea struck her, and I didn’t like it much either, though I made no doubt she’d float till we reached port. But, as I said, she played me a mean trick and foundered about four hundred miles off the Delaware Capes.” “That was tough luck,” commented Albert, as he glanced at the dial of the taffrail log which trailed astern—its brass rotator revolving rapidly just beneath the surface of the dark blue water. Next day was bright and sunny, and an extra sharp lookout was kept, for it was hoped to sight the derelict within the next twelve hours. After ascertaining the tug’s position at noon, the course was changed to N.N.E., and things went on as before. Mr. Shaw pored over the chart of the North Atlantic, and was in a state of impatient expectancy all day, although the mate kindly informed him that they might not sight the brig for a week yet, if indeed they ever did.