Something far off upon those bobbing waves must have attracted the attention of my unseeing eyes, for I came out of my dreaming abruptly; but the thing had gone. Again I thought I saw it, but it was of the color of a sea in shadow. I put my glass to my eyes, and searched the sea. It must have been six or seven miles off, or more, {67} and I could not find it, but I saw only a panorama of curiously bobbing waves going straight up and down. Then I happened upon it again for an instant, as it crossed the field of my glass, what looked like the bow of a boat just rising over a sea. I was still searching for it when I felt a thump on the bottom of the ship, and a strange shivering of the mast. It was over in a second, but I had dropped my glass. If it had not been tied around my neck it would have dropped to the deck below, and it might have killed a man. That old glass was almost heavy enough to go through the deck, dropped from the masthead. I found myself staring at Black Tony, while he stared at me. Then he looked directly down into the sea below him. What he saw there I did not know, but he gave a cry, and I felt rather than heard a sort of scraping along the keel, and the Clearchus almost stopped, and she began to careen. She careened more and more, and up there at the masthead it seemed as if she must capsize. I did not stop to think, but a panic seized me, and I slid and scrambled down the starboard rigging until I was in the foretop. There I stood and collected my scattered wits, and realized that, in my panic, I had come down, without a thought, over rigging that I had been very much afraid of. Although the topgallant shrouds have ratlines on them on all whalers and most merchantmen, they are pretty high up and seem none too secure to a boy on them for the first time. If it had not been for my momentary scare I might be up there yet.