seen on board her. Each line of spars, even to the tapering and delicate
top-gallant masts, was in its place, preserving the beauty and symmetry
of the whole fabric; but nowhere was the smallest fragment of a sail
opened to the gale. Under her bows rolled a volume of foam that was even
discernible amid the universal agitation of the ocean; and, as she came
within sound, the sullen roar of the water might have been likened to the
noise of a cascade. At first, the spectators on the decks of the
_Caroline_ believed they were not seen, and some of the men called madly
for lights, in order that the disasters of the night might not terminate
in an encounter.

"Too many see us there already!" said Wilder.

"No, no," muttered Knighthead; "no fear but we are seen; and by such
eyes, too, as never yet looked out of mortal head!"

The seamen paused. In another instant, the long-seen and mysterious ship
was within a hundred feet of them. The very power of that wind, which
was wont usually to raise the billows, now pressed the element, with the
weight of mountains, into its bed. The sea was every where a sheet of
froth, but the water did not rise above the level of the surface. The
instant a wave lifted itself from the security of the vast depths, the
fluid was borne away before the tornado in glittering spray. Along this
frothy but comparatively motionless surface, then, the stranger came
booming with the steadiness and grandeur with which a cloud is seen
sailing in the hurricane. No sign of life was discovered about her. If
men looked out from their secret places, upon the straitened and
discomfited wreck of the Bristol trader, it was covertly, and as darkly
as the tempest before which they drove. Wilder held his breath, for the
moment the stranger was nighest, in the very excess of suspense, but, as