It was a favorable night--dark, with a choppy sea that turned the phosphorescent lights up, all over the surface, so that no single object could be distinguished in it.

He sighted the Huascar crawling slowly along the coast, with not a light to be seen aboard of her.

Being short of coal, her fires were banked and she was carried forward by her own momentum.

When there was danger of her losing steerage way, her engines would be started again and then shut down as before.

Thus she was slowly creeping along the coast line.
Her bow glided by Paul not more than twenty feet away.