Captain Parry, with a slight yawn, stood up, stretched his arms, stepped across the grating, and sprang upon the deck, then stood looking over the bulwark-rail at the distant icy gleam on the bow. 'The heat seems to have baked the life out of Parry,' said Lieutenant Piercy, 'or is it that his spirits sink as he approaches home, knowing what lies before him?' 'A man should feel himself a poor creature,' exclaimed the doctor, 'when he understands that a fit of despondency, a mood of unspeakable depression, reaching even unto tears, may be caused, not by the affections--oh no!--but by a little piece of celery, or half a pickled walnut.' 'I am thirsty,' said Piercy; 'come below, doctor, and have a drink.' Four bells were struck. The ladies disappeared. Five bells--then most of the gentlemen vanished. Six bells, and now the ship seemed clothed in sleep and silence. At intervals faint catspaws stirred, none of which were neglected by the mate of the watch, who, regardless of the smothered curses of the seamen, hoarsely roared orders for the braces to be manned. Thus, stealthily, the ship floated through the midnight sea, flooded with moonshine. Then came the dawn, the resurrection of the day, trailing its ghastly shroud across the face of the eastern sky. The watch of the mate came round again at eight bells--four o'clock--and when the day broke it found him on deck, standing at the rail, and peering ahead. 'Bring me the glass,' said he to a midshipman. Some three points on the bow of the ship lay a schooner. She had all cloths showing, saving her little top-gallant sail and royal. She was certainly not under command, and yet she did not seem derelict. Mr. Mulready levelled the ship's glass. What was she? Scarcely a yacht, yet of yacht-like finish and delicacy. The faint breeze trembled in her moon-white canvas. She lay head to wind, and the long pulse of ocean swell, in lifting and sinking her, exposed her sheathing in flashes, and submitted to the eye of Mr. Mulready the handsomest sea-going model he had ever looked at. 'Something wrong there,' thought he, carefully covering her with his glass, and intently examining her for any signs of life, for smoke in the caboose chimney, for a head peering in sickness over the bulwark rail. About a mile and a half separated the two vessels, and it had taken the _Alfred_ nearly the whole night long to measure the space betwixt the gleam over the bows and the spot of waters whence it had first been sighted by Captain Parry. The chief mate could do nothing without the captain; but, whilst the crew were washing down the decks, often pausing for a breath or two in their scrubbing to glance at the graceful, helpless, lonely fabric that was now drawing abeam, Captain Barrington stepped through the companion-hatch. His sight immediately went to the schooner.