The breeze unhappily began to slacken somewhat, owing perhaps to
the gathering heat of the sun; our pace fell off: and a full hour
passed before we brought the wreck near enough to see her
permanently,--for up to this she had been constantly vanishing under
the rise of the swell. She was now about two miles off, and I took a
long and steady look at her through the telescope. It was a black hull
with painted ports. The deck was flush fore and aft, and there was a
good-sized house just before where the mainmast should have been. This
house was uninjured, though the galley was split up, and to starboard
stood up in splinters like the stump of a tree struck by lightning. No
boats could be seen aboard of her. Her jib-boom was gone, and so were
all three masts,--clean cut off at the deck, as though a hand-saw had
done it; but the mizzenmast was alongside, held by the shrouds and
backstays, and the port main and fore shrouds streamed like serpents
from her chains into the water. I reckoned at once that she must be
loaded with timber, for she never could keep afloat at that depth with
any other kind of cargo in her.
She made a most mournful and piteous object in the sunlight, sluggishly
rolling to the swell which ran in transparent volumes over her sides
and foamed around the deck-house.
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