Most of the passengers came up on the poop after breakfast. Presently, with the assistance of the skipper’s arm, the widow began a promenade. ‘What an exhibition she’s making of herself! Her husband, if she ever had one, can’t be six months dead yet, by her mourning. She ought to be ashamed of herself—the sly thing!’ If the widow did not exactly hear all this, she felt it, and cast looks of triumphant defiance at her female friends, clustered in groups, most of them holding on to something unassisted. Elderly unmarried convalescents, and very spiteful, the majority. ‘Something—on—the—lee-quarter, sir!’ came down from aloft. The skipper called for his glass, without quitting his companion. ‘Keep her away a couple of points,’ he commanded, as he brought the instrument to bear. ‘Can’t make it out at all,’ he went on, after a minute’s focussing. ‘Something white, jumping up and down. Bit of wreckage, spar, or the like, I expect. Keep her away another point. Take a peep, ma’am. Your bright eyes ’ll perhaps distinguish it.’ The widow bridled coquettishly and, supported by the skipper, put herself in what she fancied an appropriate and elegant position. ‘Oh!’ she squealed presently, ‘I see it, captain; it’s coming this way. How very interesting! “A message from the sea,” “Strange tale of the ocean,” and all that sort of thing, you know, that one reads about in the papers. What an exciting adventure!’ The widow had taken the glass from her eye whilst speaking. Suddenly a passenger cried,— ‘I see it! Look! On top of that wave!’ But even as he spoke it disappeared. The starboard watch had been called aft by the second mate to try and jam the main-yards still further into the slack of the lee-rigging. The men now remained together with the eager knot of passengers staring over the quarter. All at once, and with startling unexpectedness, there bobbed up on a sea almost level with the taffrail, a nude figure, nearly upright. One arm, by some eccentric working of the water, was jerked backwards and forwards from the face with an awfully grotesque motion of throwing kisses to the horrified watchers. The notion was intensified by the grin on the lifelike features, startlingly distinct in the sunlight, as the embalmed figure, kept erect by the greater weight of its extremities, rose up and down, now in a hollow, now on a crest, not ten yards away. ‘It’s IT, by G—d!’ shouted Nestor, who happened to be at the wheel. But no one took any notice of him in the general confusion. The male passengers stood stock still, fascinated by the spectacle. The female ones shrieked, and a couple fainted. But louder and higher than any of them shrieked the widow, who had got both arms around the skipper’s neck, to which she hung, half choking him, whilst her feet rattled frantically on the deck. ‘Let go, ma’am!’ he gurgled. ‘Damn it, let go, can’t you?’