And I remembered how
she had lifted to the heave of the sea, and how the sails had flapped in
the light breeze. And the string of flags! She had been signalling. At
that last, I found it just as impossible to believe that she had not
been real. I had reached to this point of irresolution, and was standing with my
back, partly turned to the wheel. I was holding it steady with my left
hand, while I looked over the sea, to try to find something to help me
to understand. All at once, as I stared, I seemed to see the ship again. She was more on the beam now, than on the quarter; but I thought little
of that, in the astonishment of seeing her once more. It was only a
glimpse, I caught of her--dim and wavering, as though I looked at her
through the convolutions of heated air. Then she grew indistinct, and
vanished again; but I was convinced now that she was real, and had been
in sight all the time, if I could have seen her. That curious, dim,
wavering appearance had suggested something to me. I remembered the
strange, wavy look of the air, a few days previously, just before the
mist had surrounded the ship. And in my mind, I connected the two. It
was nothing about the other packet that was strange. The strangeness was
with us. It was something that was about (or invested) our ship that
prevented me--or indeed, any one else aboard from seeing that other. It
was evident that she had been able to see us, as was proved by her
signalling. In an irrelevant sort of way, I wondered what the people
aboard of her thought of our apparently intentional disregard of their
signals. After that, I thought of the strangeness of it all. Even at that minute,
they could see us, plainly; and yet, so far as we were concerned, the
whole ocean seemed empty. It appeared to me, at that time, to be the
weirdest thing that could happen to us. And then a fresh thought came to me. How long had we been like that? I
puzzled for a few moments. It was now that I recollected that we had
sighted several vessels on the morning of the day when the mist
appeared; and since then, we had seen nothing. This, to say the least,
should have struck me as queer; for some of the other packets were
homeward bound along with us, and steering the same course. Consequently, with the weather being fine, and the wind next to nothing,
they should have been in sight all the time. This reasoning seemed to me
to show, unmistakably, some connection between the coming of the mist,
and our inability to _see_. So that it is possible we had been in that
extraordinary state of blindness for nearly three days. In my mind, the last glimpse of that ship on the quarter, came back to
me. And, I remember, a curious thought got me, that I had looked at her
from out of some other dimension. For a while, you know, I really
believed the mystery of the idea, and that it might be the actual truth,
took me; instead of my realising just all that it might mean. It seemed
so exactly to express all the half-defined thoughts that had come, since
seeing that other packet on the quarter. Suddenly, behind me, there came a rustle and rattle of the sails; and,
in the same instant, I heard the Skipper saying:

"Where the devil have you got her to, Jessop?" I whirled round to the wheel. "I don't know--Sir," I faltered. I had forgotten even that I was at the wheel. "Don't know!" he shouted. "I should damned well think you don't. Starboard your helm, you fool. You'll have us all aback!" "i, i, Sir," I answered, and hove the wheel over. I did it almost
mechanically; for I was still dazed, and had not yet had time to collect
my senses. During the following half-minute, I was only conscious, in a confused
sort of way, that the Old Man was ranting at me. This feeling of
bewilderment passed off, and I found that I was peering blankly into the
binnacle, at the compass-card; yet, until then, entirely without being
aware of the fact. Now, however, I saw that the ship was coming back on
to her course. Goodness knows how much she had been off! With the realisation that I had let the ship get almost aback, there
came a sudden memory of the alteration in the position of the other
vessel. She had appeared last on the beam, instead of on the quarter. Now, however, as my brain began to work, I saw the cause of this
apparent and, until then, inexplicable change. It was due, of course, to
our having come up, until we had brought the other packet on to the
beam. It is curious how all this flashed through my mind, and held my
attention--although only momentarily--in the face of the Skipper's
storming. I think I had hardly realised he was still singing out at me. Anyhow, the next thing I remember, he was shaking my arm. "What's the matter with you, man?" he was shouting. And I just stared
into his face, like an ass, without saying a word. I seemed still
incapable, you know, of actual, reasoning speech. "Are you damned well off your head?" he went on shouting. "Are you a
lunatic? Have you had sunstroke? Speak, you gaping idiot!" I tried to say something; but the words would not come clearly. "I--I--I--" I said, and stopped, stupidly. I was all right, really; but
I was so bewildered with the thing I had found out; and, in a way, I
seemed almost to have come back out of a distance, you know. "You're a lunatic!" he said, again. He repeated the statement several
times, as if it were the only thing that sufficiently expressed his
opinion of me. Then he let go of my arm, and stepped back a couple of
paces. "I'm not a lunatic!" I said, with a sudden gasp. "I'm not a lunatic,
Sir, any more than you are." "Why the devil don't you answer my questions then?" he shouted, angrily. "What's the matter with you? What have you been doing with the ship? Answer me now!" "I was looking at that ship away on the starboard quarter, Sir," I
blurted out. "She's been signalling--"

"What!" he cut me short with disbelief. "What ship?" He turned, quickly, and looked over the quarter. Then he wheeled round
to me again. "There's no ship! What do you mean by trying to spin up a cuffer like
that?" "There is, Sir," I answered. "It's out there--" I pointed. "Hold your tongue!" he said. "Don't talk rubbish to me. Do you think I'm
blind?" "I saw it, Sir," I persisted. "Don't you talk back to me!" he snapped, with a quick burst of temper. "I won't have it!" Then, just as suddenly, he was silent. He came a step towards me, and
stared into my face. I believe the old ass thought I was a bit mad;
anyway, without another word, he went to the break of the poop. "Mr. Tulipson," he sung out. "Yes, Sir," I heard the Second Mate reply. "Send another man to the wheel." "Very good, Sir," the Second answered. A couple of minutes later, old Jaskett came up to relieve me. I gave him
the course, and he repeated it. "What's up, mate?" he asked me, as I stepped off the grating. "Nothing much," I said, and went forrard to where the Skipper was
standing on the break of the poop.