This explanation was accepted unanimously and joy broke out afresh.

"Why sure, th' _Vulcan_, th' good old _Vulcan_! Now, lads, let's give three cheers and maybe it'll reach 'er!"

Madden left the men trying to reach her with their bellows and went below after the mate's binoculars. When he returned the sun had swung up above the rim of the ocean and the sail was plainly discernible. He leveled his glasses and his eyes went searching among the distant markings of seaweed, until it finally rested on the sail. The vessel was hull down. There was nothing to see except a little canvas stretched neatly aloft and ship-shape masts and spars. He observed her attentively for some time. She seemed to be making very little headway. All in all, Madden made little of the craft, so he handed the glass to Smith. The Englishman was likewise puzzled, and the binoculars went down the line of curious men.

There was something in the way the youth named Farnol Greer handled the instrument that caused Madden to ask:

"What do you make out, Greer?"

"She is lying to, sir. She's backing her tops'ls flat against the breeze, and her mains'l's reefed and drawing with it."

"Lying to!" cried three or four voices. "W'ot does she mean by that?

Looks as if she'd be bloomin' glad to get out o' such a bally place as this!"

"Let me have another look." Madden resumed the binoculars.

Now that Madden's attention was called to this unusual disposition of the sails, he could make out their position for himself.

This started another tide of speculation buzzing among the castaways.

Was the _Vulcan_ crippled? Had she run short of coal? But why should she voluntarily lay-to in the very sight of her quarry?

"They're fishin'," surmised Deschaillon, "off in th' boats fishin'; they're weethout food also."

This wild surmise was the only reasonable hypothesis that had been struck on. Another group of men rushed for the jury mast to show the fishermen that their presence was desired. At any rate the faint breeze was very slowly bringing the two vessels together.

If the men had been heretofore anxious that the cool breeze continue, now their anxiety was redoubled. At any moment it might die away and leave the _Vulcan_ stranded beyond communication. In painful uncertainty, they watched the tug drag her hull slowly into sight, then slowly eat her way down the long mazy lanes of the Sargasso.

Then, when she was well in view, Farnol Greer said:

"She is not the _Vulcan_, sir."

By this time all the men had their brown faces wrinkled up against the glare of the sunshine. Now they redoubled their gaze on the distant vessel.

"Faith, and sure enough she isn't!" cried Hogan.

Greer was right; the strange vessel was not the tug. She had a funnel amidship and two masts, but there her resemblance to the _Vulcan_ ceased.

The crew stared, talked, speculated, until the sun swung up like a white-hot metal ball in the sky, and the quivering heat drove them below under the awnings. From here they could still view the stranger, but not to so good advantage. The breeze, by good fortune lasted till deep in the morning, but finally dropped down in the blanketing heat, with the unknown craft a good three miles distant.

The dock's crew could make out no sign of life as they strained their eyes through the glare of tropical brilliance. The high-lights of the schooner's reversed topsails and the luminous shadows of her mainsail stood out vividly against the hot copper sky. The multi-colored markings of the ocean and the sharp line of the horizon finished a very picture of pitiless heat.

The men stood beneath the awning, legs apart, arms held away from bodies, and stared from under dripping brows for some signs of recognition from the stranger.

"'Asn't she got up a single rag to show us she sees us?" puffed Galton, swiping his hand across his forehead and flinging drops on the iron deck, where they evaporated the moment they hit.

"Don't see none," replied the navvy who possessed the binoculars at that moment.

"'Ave they any boats?"

"One cleated down for'ard, one slung on the midship davits, and I think I make hout one on t'other side past the booby hatch."

"And not a soul on deck?"

"Not unless they're settin' on th' fur side o' th' superstructure."

"Wot would they want to be settin' in th' sun for?" demanded Galton brusquely.

"'Ow do I know? If they was Eth'opians, wouldn't they set in th' sun?"

"This is as clost as we'll ever git," surmised another voice. "The night breeze'll blow 'er back where she come from."

"Well, w'ere's that?" demanded Mulcher savagely.

"Why, Eth'opia, I reckon, if she's got a crew of Eth'opians settin' on t'other side of 'er superstructure."

"They ain't a man-jack aboard; and you know it," snarled Galton, "or 'e'd be poppin' 'is eyes hout at such a 'orrible big sight as we must be."

"Anyway, I'll bet she blows back w'ere she come from, to-night,"

persisted the advocate of this theory.

The men caviled on at each other endlessly, disputing, denying, upbraiding, and once in a while coming to blows.

In order to keep any sort of discipline, Leonard and Caradoc kept to themselves under a separate awning, for all sea-faring experience has shown that a separation of officers and men is necessary for the management of sailors.

However, Madden heard most of the arguments that went on under the men's canvas, and he became convinced that the sailor was right; the evening breeze would carry the schooner away from the dock. He measured the long distance through the sea lanes from dock to schooner with his eyes.

"Caradoc," he said to his friend, "if we ever reach that vessel now's our time."

"How do you hope to do it?"

For answer Madden turned to the men. "Mulcher, bring me a life buoy, will you?"

Mulcher arose and started on his errand.

Caradoc stared. "You don't intend to _swim_ that distance--through this heat?"

"There's a boat over there, and provisions, perhaps."

"And the crew?"

"It is quite possible that they sleep through the day which is utterly becalmed and make some little headway at night with the slight evening and morning breezes--it would be a task for a sailing vessel to work herself out of the Sargasso."

"Why I never thought of that. I suppose it is possible."

Mulcher was returning with a buoy. The crew came forward behind the navvy, on the _qui vive_ over this new undertaking.

"Faith, and hadn't ye betther sind one o' th' min, sir," suggested Hogan, "an if he drowns, sir, Oi would take it to be a sign that it's a dangerous swim."