They started to turn to the left, while his eyes searched the blurred distance in over the Bank. “Hold it!” he called out suddenly. “I think I see something.”

It was only an indistinct speck, far ahead and below them. He pointed. Avery saw it, and nodded. They continued on course, heading straight toward it. In another ninety seconds he could make out that there were two separate objects. One was a narrow rock or sand spit showing just above the surface; the other, however, was a boat, and he felt a tingle of excitement along his nerves. He started to call out to Mrs. Osborne, and then was aware she had come forward and was crouched behind him, peering over his shoulder. Avery changed course slightly to put the boat on the starboard side, and nosed down to lose altitude. He could see the masts now. There were two of them, the taller aft. The boat was a schooner, and a large one. He saw the large cockpit aft, the long, low deckhouses, the rakish bowsprit.

“There she is,” he said. It was the Dragoon.

She was lying dead in the water, listing slightly to port, with her sails furled. They went over at a thousand feet, still losing altitude. Avery banked right to swing back. Ingram stared down to keep her in view, conscious of Mrs. Osborne’s face touching his and her hand digging into his shoulder. She was clutching the binoculars in her other hand, trying to bring them to bear on the schooner’s deck. He slid out of the seat, pushed her into it, and stood behind her. The schooner was momentarily lost to view then as Avery lengthened the radius of his turn. When they straightened out at last they were some four hundred feet above the water and about a mile astern. They flew up past her, less than a hundred yards off her port side, and he could see everything quite clearly.

Her hull was painted a light blue now, instead of white, and while he couldn’t make out the name lettered on her stern it was shorter than Dragoon. She lay roughly on a northerly heading about three hundred yards southwest of the dry sand bar, which was itself approximately that long, very narrow, and not over two or three feet above water at its highest point. The water was very shoal on all sides of the bar except for one twisting channel of slightly darker blue extending along its western side, past the Dragoon’s stern, and then on westward toward the outer edge of the Bank. The tide was flooding onto the Bank, flowing around her hull, but she lay broadside to it and unmoving. The deck was empty of any sign of life. Then they were past her, and Avery was climbing to gain altitude for another turn.

Mrs.