“She’s derelict, I’m thinking,” said the second mate.

I had come to the same conclusion, for I could see no signs of life upon her deck, and there was no answer to the friendly wavings from our seamen.  The crew had probably deserted her under the impression that she was about to founder.

“She can’t last long,” continued Allardyce, in his measured way.  “She may put her nose down and her tail up any minute.  The water’s lipping up to the edge of her rail.”

“What’s her flag?” I asked.

“I’m trying to make out.  It’s got all twisted and tangled with the halyards.  Yes, I’ve got it now, clear enough.  It’s the Brazilian flag, but it’s wrong side up.”

She had hoisted a signal of distress, then, before her people had abandoned her.  Perhaps they had only just gone.  I took the mate’s glass and looked round over the tumultuous face of the deep blue Atlantic, still veined and starred with white lines and spoutings of foam.  But nowhere could I see anything human beyond ourselves.

“There may be living men aboard,” said I.

“There may be salvage,” muttered the second mate.

“Then we will run down upon her lee side, and lie to.”  We were not more than a hundred yards from her when we swung our foreyard aback, and there we were, the barque and the brig, ducking and bowing like two clowns in a dance.

“Drop one of the quarter-boats,” said I.  “Take four men, Mr. Allardyce, and see what you can learn of her.”

But just at that moment my first officer, Mr. Armstrong, came on deck, for seven bells had struck, and it was but a few minutes off his watch.  It would interest me to go myself to this abandoned vessel and to see what there might be aboard of her.  So, with a word to Armstrong, I swung myself over the side, slipped down the falls, and took my place in the sheets of the boat.

It was but a little distance, but it took some time to traverse, and so heavy was the roll that often when we were in the trough of the sea, we could not see either the barque which we had left or the brig which we were approaching.  The sinking sun did not penetrate down there, and it was cold and dark in the hollows of the waves, but each passing billow heaved us up into the warmth and the sunshine once more.  At each of these moments, as we hung upon a white-capped ridge between the two dark valleys, I caught a glimpse of the long, pea-green line, and the nodding foremast of the brig, and I steered so as to come round by her stern, so that we might determine which was the best way of boarding her.  As we passed her we saw the name Nossa Sehnora da Vittoria painted across her dripping counter.