The truth of what our young adventurer had just affirmed was indeed now sufficiently evident to the eye of any seaman.  The same diminutive and misty tracery, as before, was to be seen on the light background of the threatening horizon, looking not unlike the faintest shadows cast upon some brighter surface by the deception of the phantasmagoria.  But to the mariners, who so well knew how to distinguish between the different lines of her masts, it was very evident that her course had been suddenly and dexterously changed, and that she was now steering no longer to the south and west, but, like themselves, holding her way towards the north-east.  The fact appeared to make a sensible impression on them all; though probably, had their reasons been sifted, they would have been found to be entirely different.

“That ship has truly tacked!” Earing exclaimed, after a long, meditative pause, and with a voice in which distrust, or rather awe, was beginning to get the ascendancy.  “Long as I have followed the sea, have I never before seen a vessel tack against such a head-beating sea.  He must have been all shaking in the wind, when we gave him the last look, or we should not have lost sight of him.”

“A lively and quick-working vessel might do it,” said Wilder; “especially if strong handed.”

“Ay, the hand of Beelzebub is always strong; and a light job would he make of it, in forcing even a dull craft to sail.”

“Mr Earing,” interrupted Wilder, “we will pack upon the ‘Caroline,’ and try our sailing with this taunting stranger.  Get the main tack aboard, and set the top-gallant-sail.”

The slow-minded mate would have remonstrated against the order, had he dared; but there was that, in the calm, subdued, but deep tones of his young Commander, which admonished him of the hazard.  He was not wrong, however, in considering the duty he was now to perform as one not without some risk.  The ship was already moving under quite as much canvas as he deemed it prudent to show at such an hour, and with so many threatening symptoms of heavier weather hanging about the horizon.  The necessary orders were, however, repeated as promptly as they had been given.  The seamen had already begun to consider the stranger, and to converse among themselves concerning his appearance and situation; and they obeyed with an alacrity that might perhaps have been traced to a secret but common wish to escape from his vicinity.  The sails were successively and speedily set; and then each man folded his arms, and stood gazing steadily and intently at the shadowy object to leeward, in order to witness the effect of the change.