fires lived in her timbers; when encountered at sea she was regarded as a venerable piece of marine architecture, and that was all. But why? Because her rig had been changed. She had been a ship; when I knew her she was a brigantine. Aloft she had been made to keep pace with all improvements. Then her hull was carefully preserved with paint, her voyages were short, and she was constantly being renewed and in divers ways made good. But this Death Ship was now as she had been in 1653 when she set sail from Batavia for her homeward passage. Aloft she was untouched--that is, in respect of her original aspect, if I save the varying thickness of her standing gear, which would not be observable at a short distance. For a century and a half, when I met her, had she been washing about in this ocean off the Cape of Storms, and the exposure had rotted her through and kindled the glow of deadwood in every pore. It might be that the Curse which held her crew living was not yet quick in her. By which I mean that she had not yet come to that condition of decay which would correspond in a ship to the death of a human being, so that the repairs, careening, calking and the like which her men found necessary for her might be found needful for some years yet, when she would become as her crew were--dead in time but staunch and enduring so long as the Curse should be in force. These were the speculations of a troubled and bewildered mind. I glanced at the sail astern and guessed it would not be long before that shining pillar of canvas swept the hull beneath it on to the delicate azure that went trembling to the heavens there. Prins had brought a chair for Imogene and she sat near the tiller. Vanderdecken stood beside her, watching the distant ship. Van Vogelaar, who had the watch, stumped the weather side of the poop, often coming abreast of where I stood to leeward, and occasionally sending a scowling furtive glance my way. It was not my policy to intrude. Nay, the rising of that vessel in our wake furnished a particular emphasis to Imogene's advice to me, for if haply I should irritate Vanderdecken by some unwise remark or indiscreet behaviour, and the ship should turn out an Englishman and act in some such fashion as did the Saracen, my life might have to pay for the incivility of my countrymen.