He gave the blazing flare to Powell and walked aft to watch the passing of that menace of destruction coming blindly with its parti-coloured stare out of a blind night on the wings of a sweeping wind.

Her very form could be distinguished now black and elongated amongst the hissing patches of foam bursting along her path.
As is always the case with a ship running before wind and sea she did not seem to an onlooker to move very fast; but to be progressing indolently in long leisurely bounds and pauses in the midst of the overtaking waves.
It was only when actually passing the stern within easy hail of the _Ferndale_, that her headlong speed became apparent to the eye.

With the red light shut off and soaring like an immense shadow on the crest of a wave she was lost to view in one great, forward swing, melting into the lightless space.
"Close shave," said Captain Anthony in an indifferent voice just raised enough to be heard in the wind.

"A blind lot on board that ship.

Put out the flare now." Silently Mr.Powell inverted the holder, smothering the flame in the can, bringing about by the mere turn of his wrist the fall of darkness upon the poop.