The wind had
died away. Sometimes the forward part of the vessel was hidden from
their view. Frequently it seemed distorted; strange phantom shapes
filled the deck, and the soughing of the yielding hull brought strange,
uncanny sounds to their ears.
Dan was seated on the deck, his eyes peering about on all sides, trying
to pierce the veil, every nerve taut, every sense alert. The girl
crept close beside him, so that she touched him, and there she
remained, while all the terrors of the ghostly ship arose to confront
her. The weed-hung, slimy rails and wave-bitten deck stretched away in
ever-fading perspective to the foremast where everything ended in an
amorphous blur.
There came a time when the two felt almost a part of the deep--two
mortals admitted into all the hidden evils that lurk thereon. Their
lot to witness the inception of mighty tempests; to hear great gray
waves boast of the harm they had done and the winds to plan their
rending deeds. Perhaps they themselves would be called to the work, to
deal to some proud vessel the death blow as so many derelicts have done.
Once far off there sounded a series of whistle blasts, hoarse,
tremulous notes of warning and inquiry. But as the two listened with
straining ears the sounds became more dim. Finally they ceased
altogether.
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