“We must overhaul her somehow,” said Bertric, “or we are left.  This is an uncanny affair.”

The height of her great square sail told, and little by little she drew ahead of us.  We felt the want of the oars more at this time than any, and I think that with them we might have overhauled her at once.  Had she been steered, of course she would have left us astern without hope; but as we chased her now, the unsteady flaws of the rising breeze, which we could make full use of, rather hindered her.  Now and again, with some little shift, her sail flapped and she lost her way, and yawed so that we gained on her fast, while a new hope of success sprang up in our minds.  Then the sail would fill again, and she was away from us.

Once, as the breeze veered a point or two, I thought she must have jibed, for the clew of the sail almost swung inboard; but it filled again.

“She cannot jibe,” said Bertric.  “See, her yard is braced square for running, and cannot shift.  If all holds, she must run till doomsday thus.  Her mast may go in a squall, or one of the braces may part—­but I don’t see what else is to stop her.”

But the wind was light, and hardly strained the new rigging, while there was a stout running backstay set up with all care, and even the main halliard had been led far aft to serve as another.  She was meant to run while she might, and that silent and lonely ship, passing us on an endless voyage into the great westward ocean, was as strange and uncanny a sight as a seaman could meet in a long life.  Moreover, though she was in full war trim, she seemed to have some deck cargo piled amidships, which might be plunder.

So for an hour or more that chase went on.  Once or twice we were a full half-mile astern of her, and then gained with the chance of the breeze.  Once we might have thrown a line on board her, but had none to heave.  Then she gathered way and fled from us, even as we thought we had her.  It was just as if she knew that we chased her, and would play with us.  We almost lost heart at that time, for it was sickening.

“The ship is bewitched,” said Dalfin, and in truth we agreed with him.

Why, and by whom, she had been set adrift thus, or what had befallen her crew, we could not guess.  Still, she was our only hope, and we held on after her again.  Neither Bertric nor myself had the least thought of giving up, for we knew that the chances of the breeze were all in our favour, so long as it came unsteadily as now.  And always, when it fell, we sculled fiercely and gained on her, if only a little.

So another half hour passed, with its hopes and disappointments, and then we were flying down on her with a breeze of our own, when the end came.  The wind shifted and I met it, and that shift did all for us.  It reached the ship, and took the clew of the sail inboard, shaking and thundering, while the sheets lashed to and fro across the deck.  Then somewhere those sheets jammed and held fast, and as if the canvas had been flattened in of set purpose, she luffed, until with a great clap of the sail against the mast, the whole of her upper canvas was aback, and she was hove to helplessly.  Maybe she was a furlong from us at the moment, and Bertric shouted.