THE LIEUTENANT UNMASKED I had in truth hardly more than grasped the reality of the boat's presence--it seemed so spectral a thing amid the mists of the night--when it had vanished utterly once more behind the curtain of darkness.

There was no sound to convince me my eyes had not deceived; that I had actually perceived a boat, flying before the wind, under complete control, and headed to the northward.

No echo of a voice came across the water, no slight flap of sail, no distant creak of pulley, or groaning of rope--merely that fleeting vision, seemingly a phantom of imagination, a vision born from sea and cloud.

Yet I knew I was not deceived.

Where the craft could be bound; for what secret purpose it was afloat; who were aboard, were but so many unanswerable questions arising in my mind.