It was about five bells in the forenoon watch, and it had by that time grown light enough for us to discern objects at a distance of about a mile, when, as the schooner was tossed aloft to the crest of an exceptionally gigantic wave, Simpson--whose watch it was--and I simultaneously caught sight for a moment of something that, indistinctly seen as it was through the dense clouds of flying scud-water, had the appearance of a ship of some kind, directly to windward of us.
