The water swarmed with fire this night; the chilly sea-glow started in fibres, in clouds like luminous smoke, in coils like revolving eels, and it is conceivable that the crazed eye which was bent upon these lights should fashion them into phantasms, into grotesque shapes, into the crowd of brassy faces which the sealed but waking vision beholds when the brain is drugged. He would spend twenty minutes in searching the waters, and then cross to the other side and spend a quarter of an hour in a like hunt. Always when he returned to his chair he would mutter to himself, "Why doesn't he come?" And once he started up with a frantic cry which was frightful with inarticulateness; he dashed his hand to his forehead and held it there, with his left arm stiffened out and the fingers curled with the agony of his mind. At that moment the bell was again struck, and now it was Julia who shrieked. She started up and bent her head forward, thinking to see the figure that had struck the bell. The captain broke into a wild laugh. "I see him! I see him!" he cried. "O Johnny, I'm your father!" and he started into a run with his arms outstretched, as if to seize the phantom he beheld. He ran past the bell, and crying, "I am coming, Johnny, I am coming!" climbed on to the top of the deck load, and in a strange croaking voice, as though it proceeded from some huge sea-bird sailing overhead, he exclaimed: "There you are at last, my Johnny! Father is coming to you!" and sprang overboard. Julia fell upon the deck and lay lifeless in a swoon. CHAPTER XIII. THEY MEET It was moonlight on the sea, and the full-rigged ship _York_ lay with her canvas aback, silently heaving upon the swell. But by the eye of a sailor a certain moisture would have been visible in the silver suffusion, and he might hardly have needed to look at the glass to guess that this calm scene of ocean night would in a few hours show a changed face. The time was shortly after ten. The lamp in the cabin was unlighted, but the moon shone upon the skylight, and the darkness was whitened by it, and all features of the interior were visible. Hardy lay stretched upon the cabin deck, and within an arm's reach of him rested the great Newfoundland dog, secured by a chain to the leg of the table. The picture was wonderful for its human stillness: you heard no tramp of foot, no call of voice. The very sails slept against the masts, and nothing was audible but the complaint of a bulkhead or some strong fastening as the ship sluggishly took the run of the fold. All of a sudden Hardy opened his eyes, and having opened them he kept them open, staring with just that look of bewilderment and astonishment which had been in Julia's dawning gaze. He tried to raise his head and thought it was a cannon-ball, but the dog had noticed the motion, and instantly alert with joy barked in deep-throated notes, with endless wagging of the tail.