Only
Wicks, smelling a hard day's work ahead, was more
alert. He went first to the well, sounded it once, and
then a second time, and stood a while with a grim look,
so that all could see he was dissatisfied. Then he
shook himself, stripped to the buff, clambered on the
rail, drew himself up and raised his arms to plunge.
The dive was never taken. He stood, instead,
transfixed, his eyes on the horizon.
"Hand up that glass," he said.
In a trice they were all swarming aloft, the nude
captain leading with the glass.
On the northern horizon was a finger of grey smoke,
straight in the windless air like a point of
admiration.
"What do you make it?" they asked of Wicks.
"She's truck down," he replied; "no telling yet. By
the way the smoke builds, she must be heading right
here."
"What can she be?"
"She might be a China mail," returned Wicks, "and she
might be a blooming man-of-war, come to look for
castaways. Here! This ain't the time to stand
staring. On deck, boys!"
He was the first on deck, as he had been the first
aloft, handed down the ensign, bent it again to the
signal halliards, and ran it up union down.
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