"I wonder where Portsmouth is?" remarked Bob, as the two cogitated what was best to be done, their hopes rising with the welcome breeze; although this was only very feeble as yet, not being sufficient, indeed, to blow away the fog that still hung over the sea.

"If we only knew whereabouts we was we'd know where to steer; but we've turned about sich a lot, that I'd be puzzled to tell."

"So would I," agreed Bob. "But, I tell you what I think. Let us run before the wind. It'll be sure to bring us somewhere, at all events, in the end!"

"Aye, that it would, sure-ly, Master Bob," cried d.i.c.k, surprised at the other's cleverness. "I declare I never as much as thought o' that!"

Thereupon, they wore the little cutter round, she having been previously going like a crab sideways, which fully accounted for the lively motion that had aroused them; and, Bob having stationed himself at the helm, which he had put hard over, d.i.c.k mounted up on the fo'c's'le to act as look-out, in case they should run against anything in the semi-darkness around them, or, more happily still, come in sight of land.

They had not long occupied their respective positions, when Bob's attention was attracted by a cry of alarm from his companion in the bows.

"Lawks a mussy!" yelled out d.i.c.k in accents of unfeigned terror. "I sees a white ghostess a-flying down on us, with big wings like a h'angel!"

"Nonsense, d.i.c.k!" cried Bob from aft, trying to peer ahead under the belly of the sail as he was sitting to leeward. "There are no such things as ghosts; and, besides, I don't see anything at all but the fog and the water!"

"Oh, lawks, Master Bob!" screamed the frightened d.i.c.k in answer to this.

"Look t'other side and then you'll p'r'aps believe me. Look t'other side! Look t'other side! I bees afeered! I bees afeered!"

Bob shifted his seat to windward, so as to get a better view forwards and see what had alarmed d.i.c.k.

"Why, d.i.c.k, it's a ship!" he exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight the next instant. "What you thought are angel's wings are the vessel's sails, though they are angel's wings to us!"

"Be her a real ship, Master Bob?" asked d.i.c.k, having another peep at the suspicious object and still not quite convinced as yet. "Sure-ly?"

"Of course she is, I tell you," cried Bob. "Look out now and let go the jib-sheet as I luff up. I'm going to lay-to, for the ship is coming up with us rapidly and will run us down if we don't take care!"

She was diminishing the distance between them quickly enough.

A big ship she looked, too, appearing all the larger from the intervening veil of mist, which magnified her proportions wonderfully, in similar fashion to the "Fata Morgana" seen sometimes in Italian waters.

Like as in the same spectral phenomenon, too, this vessel seemed to be gliding towards them without sound or apparent motion.

She was a veritable phantom of the deep!

There were no lights visible on her, nor did it look as if any one was on the watch.

So far as the boys could judge from the ocular evidence before them, there might really not have been a single soul on board.

But, whether that was the case or no, on she came steadily towards them bow on, emerging bigger and bigger from the ghostly mist, each movement sensibly affecting her and increasing her size; so that, presently, she became a monster ship.

She came too near to be pleasant, however, without sheering either to right or aft.

It looked as if she were going to run them down!

Bob and d.i.c.k's hopes of a rescue paled before the imminent dread of a collision that now stared them in the face--nay, was close at hand.

"Shout, d.i.c.k! Shout out with me as loud as you can so as to wake them up on board and make them see us!" cried Bob, letting go the tiller and standing up on top of the stern locker. "Now, all together, d.i.c.k!

Ship, ahoy! Ship, ahoy!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

DRIFTING.

"Help, ahoy, look out!" sang out Bob and d.i.c.k in chorus, well-nigh paralysed with fright. "Ahoy there, look out ahead!"

But, in spite of their cries, the phantom ship, whose proportions became all the more magnified the nearer she approached, rose upon them steadily out of the mist, growing into a gruesome reality each second, her hull towering over the little cutter as she bore down upon her, like a giant above a pigmy!

"Help, ahoy, look out there!" they once more shouted frantically.

"Help--ahoy!"

It was all in vain, though, their shouts and cries being unnoticed.

The next moment the on-coming vessel struck them, fortunately not end-on or amidships, but in a slanting fashion, her cut.w.a.ter sliding by the gunwale of the cutter, from bow to stern, with a harsh, grating sound and a rasping movement that shook their very vitals--the little yacht heeling over the while until she was almost on her beam-ends.

Had the vessel caught her midships, she would have at once crushed her like an eggsh.e.l.l; as it was, the fluke of one of her anchors, which was hanging from her bows ready for letting go in case of emergency, the barque being not yet clear of soundings, got foul of the cutter's rigging, sweeping her mast and boom away, the stays snapping under the strain as if they were packthread.

Poor little cutter! She was left a complete wreck and nearly full of water; still rocking to and fro from the violence of the collision, even after the craft that had done all the mischief had again, seemingly, re- transformed herself into a phantom ship and faded away in the mist that hung over the sea, like the creation of a dream!

It was a very bad dream, though; and Bob and d.i.c.k gave themselves up for lost altogether.

Their fate, drifting helplessly about, an hour or so before, hungry and miserable, had seemed desperate enough; but their slight sleep, with the subsequent awakening to the knowledge that the wind had sprung up again and was bearing them once more in some certain direction, had restored their courage and revived their hopes.

This courage, too, had became more courageous, this hope more hopeful on the approach of the barque; for, they believed she would take them on board and restore them by and by to their friends, advancing so gallantly as she did towards them, like an angel, so d.i.c.k thought.

But, now!

What were the calamities which they so recently bewailed in comparison with the present?

Then, the yacht might have been at the mercy of the mist and tide; but she was still staunch and sound, capable when a breeze blew once more of wafting them home--whereas, now, the little cutter was dismasted and water-logged, nay, even sinking for all they knew!

Thus, their present position was a thousandfold more terrible than the one before.

But, still, only boys though they were, hope did not yet quite desert them.

The indomitable courage of youth triumphed over disaster.

For a few seconds neither could speak.

However, when the ship had disappeared, going away as silently as she had approached them, they bestirred themselves to see what damage the cutter had sustained.

Bob was the first to recall his scattered wits.

"Well, they haven't sunk us, as I was afraid they would, d.i.c.k!" said he.

"I wonder if any of the planks are really started?"

"How can we see, Master Bob?" asked d.i.c.k anxiously. "So as to know if she be all right?"