Slowly the men rose up one by one and looked, clustering round the
stem head, and a little talk went round as to what this might be.

"It is a bit of wreck," said one.

"Hardly, for the gale has not been wild enough to wreck a ship in
the open; 'tis maybe lumber washed from a deck," answered another.

"It is a whale--no more or less."

"Nay," said old Kenulf; "it behaves not as a whale, and it comes
too swiftly for wreckage."

"Would it were a dead whale. Then would be profit," said another
man again, and after that the men were silent for a long while,
having said all that could be guessed, and watched the speck that
drew nearer and nearer, bearing down on us.

At last my father, ever keen of sight, said to me:

"This thing is not at the mercy of wind and wave. Rather has it the
rise and fall of a boat well handled. Yet whence should one come in
this heavy sea, after three days' gale?"

Even as he spoke, old Kenulf growled, half to himself, that to his
thinking this was a boat coming, and handled, moreover, by men who
knew their trade. Thereat some of the men laughed; for it seemed a
thing impossible, both by reason of the stretch of wild sea that so
small a craft as this--if it were indeed a boat--must have crossed,