lessened, and the noise of the wash fell, for the speed had slackened.
We might have become hushed, and were waiting, listening and anxious,
for something that was invisible, but threatening. Then I heard the
skippers voice, quick but quiet, and arrived on the bridge in time to
see the man at the wheel putting it hard over. Something had been
sighted ahead of us, and now was growing broad on the starboard bow--a
faint presentment of land, high and unrelated, for there was a luminous
void below it. It was a filmy and coloured ghost in the sky, with a
thin shine upon it of a sun we could not see. It grew more material as
we watched it, and brighter, a near and indubitable coast. "I know
where I am now," said the skipper. "Another minute or two, and we
should have been on the Manacles."

Smiling a little awkwardly, he explained that he had seen that old cap
on the floor before, without knowing how it could have got there, and
at the same time he had felt very nervous, without knowing why. The
last time was when, homeward bound in charge of a fine steamer, he
hoped Finisterre was distant, but not too far off. Just about _there_,
as it were; and that his dead reckoning was correct. The weather had
been dirty, the seas heavy, and the sun invisible. He went on, to find
nothing but worse weather. He did sight, however, two other steamers,
on the same course as himself, evidently having calculated to pass
Ushant in the morning; his own calculation. He would be off Ushant
later, for his speed was less than theirs. There they were, a lucky
and unexpected confirmation of his own reasoning. His chief officer,
an elderly man full of doubt, smiled again, and smacked his hands
together. That was all right. My friend then went into the
chart-room, and underwent the strange experience we know. He wondered
a little, concluded it was just as well to be on the safe side, and
slightly altered his course. Early next morning he sighted Ushant.