The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 1 — page 140: what you’re looking at

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

140 THE MUTINY ON THE FLYING CLOUD, Presently another and similar luminous ball gleamed into shape at the mast head, swaying and wavering about the end of the spar like its com- panion. They were those strange electric fireballs known as corporsants | While they conveyed to the skipper the only additional warning needed of the im- pending elemental strife, they also at once explained the mystery of the lights to leeward for which he was steering. ‘Those also were undoubtedly corpor- sants glimmering from the spars of the strange sail of which he was in pur- suit, and which, from her present proximity, must have been steering to the eastward, and consequently toward him, instead of to the westward and away from him, as he had feared. Blake believed she certainly could not be more than a mile distant, his conviction being that the feeble, sickly lights of the ghostly corporsants could not penetrate further than that distance in so thick an atmosphere. It now became of the utmost importance—nay, it might even be a matter of life or death for him—to reach the stranger before the hurricane should burst upon them. | He looked over the side to ascertain the speed of the raft through the water, and his heart quailed as he observed that, save for an occasional tiny phosphorescent spark on the surface or a faintly luminous halo lower down in the black depths slowly drifting by, there was nothing to indicate that she had any motion whatever. Her speed was not more than half a knot per hour ; and the stranger was probably a mile distant—two hours away at the raft’s then rate of progress ! Something must be done, and quickly, too ; for out of the darkness round about him there now floated weird, whispering sighs, faint dismal moanings, and now and then a sudden momentary rush as of invisible wings, telling that the storm fiend was marshaling his forces and about to make his Swoop. What was to be done? ‘There were only two oars on board the raft—the steering oars—and it would be next to impossible to use them as means of propulsion. Moreover, if a little puff of wind should come, as is sometimes the case, before the great burst of the hurricane, they would, one or both, be wauted where they were. : Perhaps hailing might be of use. At all events, Blake would try. And, placing his hollowed hands on each side of his mouth to form a speaking trumpet, the skipper drew a deep inspiration or two, hailed with the utmost strength of his lungs: ‘“ Ship ahoy—y !”’ And then listened. No response. Nothing save the faint murmurings and railings of the gathering gale. Ship ahoy—y !”? Hark ! what was that? Did he, indeed, hear a faint answering halloo from away yonder in the direction of those weird lights, or was it merely that the wish was father to the thought? ‘“S—H—I—P A—HOY yy ‘“ FTalloo !? S) O (E(@) iboo *S a (E(0) ETA, ee ae ae eee Pe