Then commenced a spectacle still more curious than that which those on the cliff had so long been regarding with interest.

Ropes began to move, and the sails were drawn up in festoons, apparently without the agency of hands.

Cut off from a seeming communication with the ocean, or the hulls, the spars of the different ships appeared to be instinct with life; each machine playing its own part independently of the others, but all having the same object in view.

In a very few minutes the canvass was hauled up, and the whole fleet was swinging to the anchors.

Presently head after head was thrown out of the fog, the upper yards were alive with men, and the sails were handed.