Captain Parry belonged to a fighting profession. When he talked of boarding the timberman and bringing off the eight men, his imagination was a little confused. He brandished a sword in fancy; he was followed by a number of smart men in red coats, and with fixed bayonets. He did not quite gather that, if he headed the boarders, he should be leading into glory three timid seamen who were entirely averse to selling their lives at any price. Moreover, Captain Parry was not a sailor. He could not imagine how difficult it is to gain the deck of a ship whose people do not want you. These eight men would, in a deck cargo of timber, find plenty of materials fit for knocking out the bottom of a boat, and the brains of those who should venture their noses above the rail. But it was an idle argument betwixt him and the mate. Were they going to find the half-foundered brig? Would the eight men be in her? Would Miss Vanderholt be amongst them? At daybreak nothing was visible in the telescope from the fore royal yard. The weather had cleared in the night. It was a strange, mountainous morning of huge swollen cloud, whose sun-bright bellies amazingly whitened the silver of that ocean. Now and again, round about the horizon, a spark of lightning flashed in the heart of a violet shadow of vapour, and now and again a low note of thunder, distant, tremulous as an organ strain, rolled across the sea, as though some huge, deep-throated beast, big as a hill, and couchant behind the horizon, was being worried. There was breeze enough to keep the schooner's sails full, and sunrise found the _Mowbray_ pursuing the course of the night. Captain Parry refreshed himself with a bucket of cold green brine, and tried to make some breakfast. Mr. Blundell ate heartily, and again, as they sat at table, they argued upon the course to adopt should they find the eight seamen on the wreck. 'If they've got Miss Vanderholt with them,' said the mate, 'I should recommend asking them to allow us to receive her aboard--we leaving them aboard the wreck to be taken off by the next thing that passes.' 'I like that idea,' said Captain Parry; 'it would save bloodshed. We want nothing but the young lady. They should be glad to get easily rid of her as a witness. If they are short of food, we can supply them with stores enough to keep them going for a time that would allow of a reasonable chance of their being rescued.' 'They'll want provisions, anyhow,' said the mate. 'Stove timbermen float on their cargo. You need to dive to get at the grub in those derelicts. I'm counting upon hunger courting them into the schooner without obliging us to try what coaxing them with four men and two pistols is going to do.' They went on deck, and stared at the sea-line through glasses. A little before noon, just at the moment when Mr. Blundell was coming out of his cabin with his sextant, a man stationed aloft on the look-out hailed him.