'What is it?' shouted Blundell, springing through the companion-hatch. 'There is a black object away down upon the port-bow. It looks like a boat.' 'How does it bear on the bow?' cried Blundell to the little figure aloft, a sailor with a face set in black whiskers. He looked to tremble in the heat up there, and his shape, as he stood erect to the height of the truck, seemed shot with the lights of several dyes, and against a swollen heap of cloud past him he showed like a coloured daguerreotype. 'About two points,' was his answer. Mr. Blundell shifted his helm for it, but, whatever it might be, it was not yet visible from the deck. The mate got an observation of the sun, and went below to work it out. When he returned he found Captain Parry examining a dark object on the bow with a telescope. 'It's a ship's boat most unquestionably,' said the captain, turning to Mr. Blundell. The mate was at this instant hailed afresh from the masthead. 'There's another dark object about a point on the weather-bow,' said the fellow dangling high in air, his hoarse voice softening in falls as it reached the ear from the hollows of the sails. 'She'll be the wreck, sir,' he howled, after working away with his glass. Captain Parry was as pale as the dawn with excitement and expectation. 'I vow to God,' said he, bringing his fist down on the rail, 'I would certainly lose my left arm with cheerfulness to know at this instant that Miss Vanderholt is alive and well in the wreck!' 'If she is with them they'll all come aboard together,' said the mate, with scarce conscious dryness. 'Hunger and thirst will work their way with beasts, let alone men.' Little more was said whilst the schooner, driven by a five-knot breeze, swept in long floating launches down upon the boat that came and went. There had been wind somewhere, and a small swell rolled in from the westward, running lightning flashes through the water. No man could say it was the _Mowbray's_ long-boat till they had luffed and shaken the wind out of the schooner close alongside the little fabric. Then her identity was settled by a single glance at her through the glass. The yacht's name, '_Mowbray_--London,' was painted in large black letters in the stern-sheets. 'Stand by to hook her,' shouted the mate. A seaman aft, jumping for a boathook in one of the quarter-boats, sprang into the little ledge of the main chains. The schooner was slightly manoeuvred; the boat was brought close alongside and captured. She was as empty and dry as an old cocoanut-shell. 'What does that signify?' said Captain Parry. 'One of two things, clearly,' answered Blundell. 'Either they have carried all the stores they left the yacht with aboard the wreck, or the ship that picked them up emptied her before sending her adrift.' 'Would they let a valuable boat like that go?' The mate shrugged his shoulders. There are some questions concerning the sea which even a sailor cannot answer.