Swiftly she was abaft. They saw her dip into the deep trough between two towering crests. Only her curling flag and the tops of the three masts were left visible. And suddenly they sank down, too, and seemed to vanish.
When the next wave away reached that spot to lift her to its top, she did not rise. Indeed, she was no longer there.
‘She’s gone!’ Franklin gasped.
‘Gene, indeed,’ Captain Lowrie said.
Bruno, his brow lined with multiple wrinkles, peered intently at the spot where he had last seen her. ‘Has she sunk?’ he said.
'Did she go down?’
Nobody answered his questions. Captain Lowrie murmured, ‘He sheered off. Did you see him sheer off? He didn’t mean to strike us in the first place. He was satisfied to push us off our course. That was all he wanted. It was as plain as day; and having done that he’s gone and vanished like any good ghost should.’ The blood was flowing back into Bruno’s cheeks. He straightened, and felt more assured.
‘Ghost, my eye!’ he snapped. ‘He would have cut us in half if he hadn’t seen us at the last moment. The captain of that ship is a fool. I wish we could have got her name, and reported her. He picked a fine stormy night to be running without lights. ’
He scanned the turbulent seas for some sign of her. But there was none. ‘But where did she go?’
Captain Lowrie did not attempt to answer him. He addressed himself to Franklin.
‘Bring her back, mister,’ he said. ‘Bring her back on the eastbound route. I don’t know the meaning of it, but it’s over and done. So let’s be on our way again, with the sea on the quarter. This old lady is panting - she never did like a following sea. ’ Franklin brought back the helm, and the Mary Watson soon turned slowly eastward, where a faint leaden glow was beginning to touch the sky, off in eternity where the sea met the heavens.
The telephone rang. Captain Lowrie answered it. It was McNulty, calling from the black hole of Calcutta, annoyed and bothered. ‘Captain, sir,’ he said, ‘must we be staying in a following sea? When my screws are near the surface, they all but shake my shaft out of its bearings.’
‘I’ve other things to worry about beside your shaft,’ Captain Lowrie replied. ‘The course is my concern, and the shaft is yours, Mr McNulty. So mind your P’s and Q’s. There’ll be no more following seas if we can help it. But then again, I ain’t in a position to make any promises.’
He hung up abruptly.
About ten minutes had passed since they had last seen the three-masted will-o’-the-wisp bury itself in that trough.
The wind had all but died. The rain had definitely vanished.
The seas were beginning to drop. But only slightly. The cloud which hid the moon passed on, and the night was once again filled with a silver glow.
The four men stood up at the weatherbreak now, watching the night sharply. Only Captain Lowrie’s face seemed relaxed. Murphy’s was afraid. Bruno’s was taut. Franklin’s was harried.
And while they stood there, they felt it again, that strange fluttering feeling upon their heartstrings. Like violins in tremolo. Bruno shivered; his hands felt icy cold.
‘Mind the helm,’ Captain Lowrie said sharply.
Franklin had raised his left hand. He pointed it out past the weatherbreak. In awed, sepulchral tone he said, ‘Look!’
They looked. But Captain Lowrie had already seen it. ‘Aye,’ he said coolly. ‘She’s back again.’
Mr Murphy, the quartermaster, tried to keep his teeth from chattering. But he could not manage it. The cracking sound of them filled the bridge.
It was true enough. She was back again. But this time she came from the north. All of her sails were set, and her lee scuppers were awash. She was running close-hauled, and her bow was under a wall of water most of the time.
Bruno stared at the flag upon his own mast. It curled to the south. That meant the wind had shifted.
‘But how,’ Bruno asked in a choked voice, ‘can she run close-hauled against the wind which is directly astern of her?’
‘She ain’t no ordinary ship,’ Captain Lowrie replied. ‘And not a ship to be afraid of, either, mister,’ he remarked to the trembling quartermaster. ‘Only three hours back, I offered the Dutchman a tow around Good Hope, if need be. It ain’t like one good seaman to return ill to another good seaman, when only good has been offered. He means well, no doubt. But what he means, I can’t yet fathom.’
Bruno said, ‘But the wind has all but died. How can a ship point down with such speed when there isn’t any wind to push her?’
‘I told you, mister,’ answered Captain Lowrie, ‘she ain’t no ordinary ship.’
No more was said. They all stood stock still, tense, and watched her come. She had seemed far ahead of them to port when they first sighted her again. But already she was much closer. There was white water all around her. She seemed to slash at the ocean. The Mary Watson's own speed had carried her far ahead, so that now the schooner with the red sails was sharply off the port bow.
‘A mirage,’ Bruno said thickly. ‘A mirage.’ He spoke with hope, not with conviction. He, too, like the quartermaster, was trembling.
The schooner seemed so close now that they could have thrown a belaying pin upon her deck. And suddenly her intentions were plain. She held her way, adamantly, and every man on the fated bridge knew what she would do.
She was going to cut across their bow. Cut across them, sharp and close, impailing herself upon their forepiece if necessary. She would not give way this time, she would not sheer off. The bearded man at her helm, firm and resolute, had frozen there.
Captain Lowrie sprang to the engine-room telegraph and swung it to full speed astern. In the engine room, McNulty went crazy, wondering what was happening topside.
The Mary Watson groaned and paused in the seaway as her single engine went into reverse. The lone screw churned the water white behind her, imparting a terrific vibration through her hull, which threatened to split the rusty plates asunder.
The freighter almost made it, but not quite. Despite her revolving screw pulling her full speed astern, her impetus carried her forward. Under her bow, where her anchors clung to their niches, the schooner with the blood-red sails passed. She looked big and real now, although the men on her deck still seemed to be shadows.
Captain Lowrie and the others braced themselves for the crash. Surely it would be her beam, directly in their path. In a moment, there would be the splintering wood of her hull flying up, smacked by the steel bow of the Mary Watson. But she moved faster than even they had reckoned.
Her beam flashed by. Her foam-drenched combing went next, so close to the sharp prow of the freighter that the wash, compressed between the two, catapulted straight up high into the air and crashed upon the freighter’s forepiece.
Captain Lowrie said, in a quiet low voice, ‘We’ll hit her stern, sure.’ Automatically, he braced himself.
The other men seemed to be caught in a sort of paralysis.
It came. It was dull, not sharp. For all they knew, it might have been the blow of a chance sea. But they felt it distinctly.
A tremor ran through the Mary Watson's spine. Captain Lowrie found himself on the exposed port wingtip of the bridge, shouting wildly. Bruno, inside, telegraphed the engine room to stand by.
There was no sound of broken wood. No sound, in fact, except the great roaring silence which swelled in their ears. The freighter paused, her screws stilled, and lolled there in the glassy interim which divided the crests.
Bruno stuck out his head from within the bridge. ‘Where did she go?’