The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 1 — page 139: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MUTINY ON THE FLYING CLOUD. 139 3 The skipper had no means of ascertaining the time, it being too intensely dark to permit of his reading the face of his watch even when it was held close to his eyes, though he made two or three unsuccessful attempts to do so. Anxious and impatient as he was for the dawn, he knew that it must be at least another hour, perhaps nearer two, before he could reasonably expect its appearance. Two hours more of sickening suspense! One hundred and twenty minutes! With the weather in such a threatening state what might not happen in the interval? If he could only have obtained an occasional glimpse of the compass, or if the night had been less opaquely dark he would not have cared so much. In the one case he would have been enabled not only to keep a mental reckoning of his own course, but also that of the ship ahead, and to follow her direction, io matter how capricious the breeze; whilst in the other case he might have stood some chance of catching a momentary glimpse of her. As his reflection took this turn the captain stooped and looked ahead under the foot of the sail, looked more intently, rubbed his eyes and looked again. | What was it he saw? A light—lights? Yes, surely; it must be so, or were those faint, luminous specks merely illusory and a result of the over- straining of his visual organs due to the intensity of his gaze into the gloom ? No; those feebly glimmering points of light were stationary ; they main- tained the same fixed distance from each other, and he could count them— one, two, three—half a dozen of them at least, if not more; he could not be certain, for they were so very faint. What could it mean? Was there a whole fleet of ships down there to lee- ward? That there was something was an absolute certainty ; and as it seemed an impossibility that it could be anything else it was only reasonable to conclude that it must be a ship or ships. At all events, there could be no question as to the course he ought to follow ; it would be worse than folly to continue in pursuit of an invisible ship, with those lights in comparatively plain view only a couple of points on his lee bow. So the skipper bore away until the faint luminous spots opened out just clear of the heel of the long yard. ‘There he resolutely kept them, the wind having by this time fallen so light that it was necessary for him to make fre- quent sweeps with the steering oar in order to keep the rait’s head pointed in the required direction. Suddenly a greenish spectral radiance beamed down upon him from above ; and, quickly casting a startled glance aloft, Blake shudderingly beheld a ball of lambent greenish light quivering upon the upper extremity of the long, tapering yard and swaying to and fro with the roll of the rait, much as the flame of a.candle would have done under similar circumstances, . Clinging lightly to the end of the yard, it alternately elongated and flat- tened as the spar swayed to and fro, now and then rolling a few inches down the yard as though about to travel down to the deck, but as often returning to the extremity of the yard again. Comicbdooks S|