seems mighty slow therefore."

"Nay, supper comes to the patient; but it seems to me that I have
to watch for somewhat."

"Surely for naught but the tide," I answered, not thinking much of
the matter, but yet wondering a little.

"Not for tide or wind, but for somewhat new, rather--somewhat of
which I have a fear.

"But this is foolishness," he said, laughing again at himself, for
few men thought less of signs and forewarnings than he.

Then he looked out again to windward, under his hand, and all of a
sudden turned sharply to me, pointing and saying:

"But, as I live, hither comes something from the open sea!"

I rose up and looked to where he showed me, and as the ship rose to
a great wave, far off I saw a dark speck among white-crested
rollers, that rose and fell, and came ever nearer, more swiftly
than wreckage should.

Now some of the men who clustered under the shelter of the fore
deck, with their eyes ever on us, rose up from their places and
began to look out seaward over the bows through the spray to find
out what we watched, and ere long one man called to his mates:

"Ho, comrades, here comes flotsam from the open sea!"