I looked up at the captain on his bridge and smiled. "She must have
started very early!" I said.

The captain's fuzzy brows met portentously.

"Ay! Very early! So early that the watch never saw her go. He must
have missed an hour and she must have gained one."

"It's rather strange, isn't it?" I said--"May I come on the bridge?"

"Certainly."

I ran up the little steps and stood beside him, looking out to the
farthest line of sea and sky.

"What do you think about it?" I asked, laughingly, "Was she a real
yacht or a ghost?"

The captain did not smile. His brow was furrowed with perplexed
consideration.

"She wasn't a ghost," he said--"but her ways were ghostly. That is,
she made no noise,--and she sailed without wind. Mr. Harland may say
what he likes,--I stick to that. She had no steam, but she carried
full sail, and she came into the Sound with all her canvas bellying
out as though she were driven by a stormy sou'wester. There's been
no wind all night--yet she's gone, as you see--and not a man on
board heard the weighing of her anchor. When she went and how she
went beats me altogether!"