"The ship, sir?"  I echoed dazedly--for, with the question, it had come to me in a flash that we ought by this time to be able to see at least the spars of the _Psyche_ swaying rhythmically athwart the sky out over the low sandbank, if she still lay at anchor where we had left her;--"the ship?  No, sir, I confess that I can't see her anywhere. Surely Mr Purchase cannot have shifted his berth, for any reason? But--no," I continued, as the absurdity of the suggestion came home to me--"of course he hasn't; he hasn't enough hands left with him to make sail upon the ship, even if he were obliged to slip his cables."