Da Costa straightened and gazed while I raised my glass. The vessel
was a scant mile away, and must have been visible long before the
sleepy watcher had seen her. She was a sloop about the size of the
Suwarna, without power. All sails set, even to a spinnaker she
carried, she was making the best of the little breeze. I tried to read
her name, but the vessel jibed sharply as though the hands of the man
at the wheel had suddenly dropped the helm--and then with equal
abruptness swung back to her course. The stern came in sight, and on
it I read Brunhilda.

I shifted my glasses to the man at wheel. He was crouching down over
the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked
the vessel veered again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman
straighten up and bring the wheel about with a vicious jerk.

He stood so for a moment, looking straight ahead, entirely oblivious
of us, and then seemed again to sink down within himself. It came to
me that his was the action of a man striving vainly against a
weariness unutterable. I swept the deck with my glasses. There was no
other sign of life. I turned to find the Portuguese staring intently
and with puzzled air at the sloop, now separated from us by a scant
half mile.

"Something veree wrong I think there, sair," he said in his curious
English. "The man on deck I know. He is captain and owner of the
Br-rwun'ild. His name Olaf Huldricksson, what you say--Norwegian. He
is eithair veree sick or veree tired--but I do not undweerstand where
is the crew and the starb'd boat is gone--"

He shouted an order to the engineer and as he did so the faint breeze