face, than the skiff whirled away from the spot, like a sea-fowl taking wing under alarm.  Though Ludlow, at each moment, expected a shot, even the imminence of the danger did not prevent him from gazing, in absorbed attention, at the image.  The light by which it was illumined, though condensed, powerful, and steadily cast, wavered a little, and exhibited her attire.  Then the captain saw the truth of what Seadrift had asserted; for, by some process of the machine into which he had not leisure to inquire, the sea-green mantle had been changed for a slighter robe of the azure of the deep waters.  As if satisfied with having betrayed the intention of the sorceress to depart, the light immediately vanished.

“This mummery is well maintained!” muttered Ludlow, when the skiff had reached a distance that assured him of safety.  “Here is a symptom that the rover means soon to quit the coast.  The change of dress is some signal to his superstitious and deluded crew.  It is my task to disappoint his mistress, as he terms her, though it must be confessed that she does not sleep at her post.”

During the ten succeeding minutes, our foiled adventurer had leisure, no less than motive, to feel how necessary is success to any project whose means admit of dispute.  Had the hawser been cut and the brigantine stranded, it is probable that the undertaking of the captain would have been accounted among those happy expedients which, in all pursuits, are thought to distinguish the mental efforts of men particularly gifted by Nature; while, under the actual circumstances, he who would have reaped all the credit of so felicitous an idea, was mentally chafing with the apprehension that his unlucky design might become known.  His companion was no other than Robert Yarn, the fore-top-man, who, on a former occasion, had been heard to affirm, that he had already enjoyed so singular a view of the lady of the brigantine, while assisting to furl the fore-top-sail of the Coquette.

“This has been a false board, Master Yarn,” observed the captain, when the skiff was past the entrance of the Cove, and some distance down the bay; “for the credit of our cruise, we will not enter the occurrence in the log.  You understand me, Sir:  I trust a word is sufficient for so shrewd a wit?”

“I hope I know my duty, your Honor, which is to obey orders, though it may break owners,” returned the top-man.  “Cutting a hawser with a knife is but slow work in the best of times; but though one who has little right to speak in the presence of a gentleman so well taught, it is my opinion that the steel is not yet sharpened which is to part any rope aboard yon rover, without the consent of the black-looking woman under her bowsprit.”

“And what is the opinion of the berth-deck concerning this strange brigantine, that we have so long been following without success?”