“We shall have a breeze, and more than we want, Pusser,” (intended for Purser, a name Benjie always persisted in giving me), he answered, glancing round the horizon. “You’ve not seen anything like this before, eh? A man must come to sea to know what’s what. There are strange sights on the ocean.”

“So I have always heard,” I remarked.

“Yes, you’d have said so if you had been on deck last night in the middle watch,” he observed, in a low tone.

“How so? what happened?” I asked.

“Why, just this,” he answered. “There was not more wind than there is now, and the sky was clear, with a slice of a moon shining brightly, when, just as I was looking along its wake, what did I see but a full-rigged, old-fashioned ship, under all sail, bearing down towards us at a tremendous rate. When she go. . . Read More