"No, sir, certainly not," I replied. "That brightness is of an
essentially electrical nature. Besides, see, see! it moves;
it is moving forwards, backwards; it is darting towards us!"

A general cry arose from the frigate.

"Silence!" said the captain. "Up with the helm, reverse the engines."

The steam was shut off, and the Abraham Lincoln, beating to port,
described a semicircle.

"Right the helm, go ahead," cried the captain.

These orders were executed, and the frigate moved rapidly
from the burning light.

I was mistaken. She tried to sheer off, but the supernatural
animal approached with a velocity double her own.

We gasped for breath. Stupefaction more than fear made us dumb
and motionless. The animal gained on us, sporting with the waves.
It made the round of the frigate, which was then making fourteen knots,
and enveloped it with its electric rings like luminous dust.

Then it moved away two or three miles, leaving a phosphorescent track,
like those volumes of steam that the express trains leave behind.
All at once from the dark line of the horizon whither it retired
to gain its momentum, the monster rushed suddenly towards the Abraham
Lincoln with alarming rapidity, stopped suddenly about twenty feet
from the hull, and died out--not diving under the water, for its