"Hillo!--who have we here?" said I, as the black sails and lofty spars of a large vessel, diminished by distance into a child's toy, were hove up out of the darkness into the clear, in strong relief against the increasing light of the lovely background, rolling slowly on the bosom of the dark swell, and then disappearing, as if she had slid down the watery mountain into the abyss whereout she had emerged. Presently the object appeared again; and this time, by the aid of my glass, I made out a stately vessel, gracefully rising and falling on the ever-heaving waters. Anon, the bright planet, the halo round whose forehead had already lit up the clearing east, emerged, all pure and fresh, from the dark sea, and floated on the horizon like a crystal globe, shedding a long stream of trembling light on the sparkling and tumbling waves. Mr Peak at this instant called out from forward---- "The commodore is showing lights, sir." "Very well--what are they?" It was the night signal for a strange sail in the north-east. "Answer it--but mind you keep the lanterns under the lee of the sail, so that our friend to windward may not see them." It was done--and I again looked in the direction where we had seen the stranger, but she had suddenly become invisible--the dazzling of the dancing moonbeams on the water preventing our seeing her. "She must be right in the wake of the moon, sir," quoth Mr Marline; "I cannot make her out now at all." "Very well," said Lanyard again--"but the _shine_ that makes her invisible to us will indicate our whereabouts surely enough to her, for it is glancing directly on our white sails." I had in my time learned a bucaniering trick or two.--"How thought you she was standing when you saw her last--when you was busy with the commodore's lights?" said I. "Right down for us, sir." "Then, Dick, my beauty, if you will take my advice, you will lower away the yard, and haul down the jib." The suggestion was taken, and we were soon rocking on the dark billows, with our solitary mast naked as a blasted pine. As I expected, to any one looking at us from windward, we must have become invisible, against the heavy bank of black clouds down to leeward; and, in corroboration of this, the strange vessel gradually emerged from out the silvery dazzle, and glided majestically down the glorious flow of bright moonlight, standing right for us, evidently unaware of our vicinity. She was not steered so steadily, but that I could perceive she was a ship, sailing dead before it with all sail set to woo the faint breeze; royals, sky-sails, and studding-sails aloft and alow. Presently it freshened a bit, and she took in her light and steering-sails--she was now about two miles from us.