meant to run while she might, and that silent and lonely ship,
passing us on an endless voyage into the great westward ocean, was
as strange and uncanny a sight as a seaman could meet in a long
life. Moreover, though she was in full war trim, she seemed to have
some deck cargo piled amidships, which might be plunder.

So for an hour or more that chase went on. Once or twice we were a
full half-mile astern of her, and then gained with the chance of
the breeze. Once we might have thrown a line on board her, but had
none to heave. Then she gathered way and fled from us, even as we
thought we had her. It was just as if she knew that we chased her,
and would play with us. We almost lost heart at that time, for it
was sickening.

"The ship is bewitched," said Dalfin, and in truth we agreed with
him.

Why, and by whom, she had been set adrift thus, or what had
befallen her crew, we could not guess. Still, she was our only
hope, and we held on after her again. Neither Bertric nor myself
had the least thought of giving up, for we knew that the chances of
the breeze were all in our favour, so long as it came unsteadily as
now. And always, when it fell, we sculled fiercely and gained on
her, if only a little.

So another half hour passed, with its hopes and disappointments,
and then we were flying down on her with a breeze of our own, when
the end came. The wind shifted and I met it, and that shift did all
for us. It reached the ship, and took the clew of the sail inboard,
shaking and thundering, while the sheets lashed to and fro across