For some moments nothing but sea or sky filled the field of the glass
as the ship rose and fell; but all at once there leaped into this field
the hull of a ship, deep as her main-chains in the water, which came
and went before my eye as the long seas lifted or dropped in the
foreground. I managed to keep her sufficiently long in view to
perceive that she was totally dismasted.
"It's a wreck," said I, turning to the man: "let her come to again and
luff a point. There may be living creatures aboard of her."
Knowing what sort of man Captain Coxon was, I do not think that I
should have had the hardihood to luff the ship a point out of her
course had it involved the bracing of the yards; for the songs of the
men would certainly have brought him on deck, and I might have provoked
some ugly insolence. But the ship was going free, and would head more
westerly without occasioning further change than slightly slackening
the weather-braces of the upper yards. This I did quietly; and the
dismantled hull was brought right dead on end with our flying jib-boom.
The men now caught sight of her, and began to stare and point; but did
not sing out, as they saw by the telescope in my hand that I perceived
her.
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