reality in fact.

Then, a little before the dawn, and when the sea was yet full of
darkness, I was greatly startled to hear a prodigious splash amid the
weed, mayhaps at a distance of some hundred yards from the boat. Then,
as I stood full of alertness, and knowing not what the next moment
might bring forth, there came to me across the immense waste of weed, a
long, mournful cry, and then again the silence. Yet, though I kept very
quiet, there came no further sound, and I was about to re-seat myself,
when, afar off in that strange wilderness, there flashed out a sudden
flame of fire.

Now upon seeing fire in the midst of so much lonesomeness, I was as one
amazed, and could do naught but stare. Then, my judgment returning to me,
I stooped and waked the bo'sun; for it seemed to me that this was a
matter for his attention. He, after staring at it awhile, declared that
he could see the shape of a vessel's hull beyond the flame; but,
immediately, he was in doubt, as, indeed, I had been all the while. And
then, even as we peered, the light vanished, and though we waited for the
space of some minutes; watching steadfastly, there came no further sight
of that strange illumination.

From now until the dawn, the bo'sun remained awake with me, and we talked
much upon that which we had seen; yet could come to no satisfactory
conclusion; for it seemed impossible to us that a place of so much
desolation could contain any living being. And then, just as the dawn was
upon us, there loomed up a fresh wonder--the hull of a great vessel maybe
a couple or three score fathoms in from the edge of the weed. Now the
wind was still very light, being no more than an occasional breath, so
that we went past her at a drift, thus the dawn had strengthened