over to the other side of the deck. “What was she like?”
“She was reported to me by the mate,” replied Jacob Blunt.
“Please send for him.”
“Oh! Mr.––a’––”
“Binks, sir,” said that individual, touching his hat and making an awkward scrape at a bow.
“Well, Mr. Binks, did you clearly make out the vessel you saw this morning under the land?”
“Can’t say exactly, sir, as I did; but Ben Brown there was on the fore-yard, and he got a good squint at her.”
“Ah! can I see the man?”
The mate straightway went forward, and, after a few pokes about the lee waist, Ben was roused out from under the jolly-boat and came rolling aft.
“You saw the schooner, eh?” said the lieutenant, as if he was in the habit of asking sharp questions and getting quick answers.
“Yes, sir,” said the squat seaman, as he hitched up his knife-belt, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and took off his cap.
“Where?”
“Here away, sir,” with a wave of his paw, “just clear of that bluff foreland where the gap opens with the Blue Mountain.”
“How was she rigged?”
“Bare sticks, sir, not much of a bowsprit, and no sail spread. I see her first by the flash of her sweeps in the rising sun, as she was heading about sou’-sou’-east into the land.”
“Two masts, you say?”
“Ay, sir; but I thought as ’ow there was a jigger-like yard a-sticking out over her starn, though I wasn’t sartin.”
“So!” said the lieutenant, in a musing tone, and with rather a grave face and compressed lip; “that will do; thank you, my man.” Then placing his hand on the skipper’s shoulder, he drew him to one side, out of ear-shot, and said,
“Captain Blunt, are you much acquainted in these latitudes?”
“Oh yes, sir, me and my old brig are regular traders here, from Bordeaux to Jamaica, and so home to England.”
“No treasure, I presume?” went on the officer, with a smile.
“Why, lieutenant, none to speak of, p’raps; just a handful of dollars and a guinea or two in the bag for a few sacks of sugar or coffee, or a pipe of rum, or sich like, on my own account.”
“Well, my friend, there is probably nothing to fear, but if the 20 breeze springs up, keep as close to the corvette as you can, and I shall ask the captain to keep a look-out for you during the night.”
“By the way”––the officer continued in a low tone as he moved toward the gangway––“in case any thing should happen, you had better hoist a lantern at your peak or in the main-rigging––we have sharp eyes for ugly customers, and one or two of them have been particularly troublesome of late hereabouts.”
Turning for a moment to bid adieu to the fair lady passenger on the quarter-deck, and recovering his sword after a playful struggle with the youngster, he buckled it around his waist, and, stepping lightly over the side and into the boat, the oars fell with a single splash, and the cutter shot rapidly away toward the corvette.
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CHAPTER IV.
SUNSET.
| “Light is amid the gloomy canvas spreading, The moon is whitening the dusky sails, From the thick bank of clouds she masters, shedding The softest influence that o’er night prevails. Pale is she, like a young queen pale with splendor, Haunted with passionate thoughts too fond, too deep; The very glory that she wears is tender, The very eyes that watch her beauty fain would weep.” |
Not a breath from the lungs of Æolus. The sun went down like a globe of fire; but just as it touched the horizon it flattened out into an oval disk, and, sinking behind a dead, slate-colored cloud, shot up half a dozen broad rose and purple bands, expanding as they mounted heavenward, and then fading away in pearly-tinted hues in the softening twilight until it mingled in the light of the half moon nearly at the zenith. There lay the island, too, now all clear again, with the blue tops of the mountains marked in pure distinct outline, and falling away from peak to peak on either hand, till the sea flashed up in sluggish creamy foam at the base. The man-of-war birds came floating in from seaward, high up, like black musquitoes, with their pointed wings wide spread and heading toward the land, but now with never a quiver to their silent pinions. A school of porpoises, too, broke water from the opposite direction, and, crossing and recrossing each other’s track, came leaping and puffing over the gentle swells until they struck the brig’s wake, when they wheeled around her bows, dashed off on a swift visit to the corvette, and then, closing up in watery phalanx, went gamboling, leaping, and breaking water again to windward. Presently, along the eastern horizon, the banks of clouds, which had been lying dead and motionless all the sultry day, seemed to be imbued with life, and, separating in their fleecy masses, mounted up above the sea, and soon spread out, like a lady’s fan, in all directions.
“Ho! ho!” shouted Captain Blunt, clapping his hands, “what said I, Madame Rosalie, when we saw the sun setting up his lee backstays a while ago? A breeze, eh? Come, Mr. Binks, be wide awake! We shall be bowling off the knots before the watch is out.”
The mate caught the enthusiasm of the skipper, and, jumping up on the break of the deck cabin, he sang out,
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“D’ye hear there, lads? give us a good pull of the top-sail halliards, and round in them starboard braces a bit! That’s your sort! Well, the head-yards! That’ll do with the main! Up with the flying jib, and trim aft them starboard jib and staysail sheets! There! Belay all.”
Meanwhile the corvette, with her lofty dimity kissing the sky, caught the first light airs before the slightest ripple darkened the surface of the water; and with her helm a-starboard, and her after-yards braced sharp up, she silently swung round on her heel, while the spanker came flat aft, like a sheet of white paper, and with the head-sails trimmed, she slowly moved athwart the stern of the brig. The sharp whistles of the boatswain and his mates, piping like goldfinches, were the only sounds that were heard; and as the cruiser moved on in her course, the declining moon cast a mellow light over the folds of her canvas, and, like a girl in bridal attire, she threw a graceful shadow over the smooth and swelling waters away off to windward.
The sails of the brig, which had begun to swell out in easy drooping lines, fell back again flat to the masts as the ship crossed her wake. But as the corvette passed, the officer of the watch on the poop raised his cap to the lovely woman who was standing out in graceful relief on the upper cabin deck, with her little boy held up beside her in the sturdy arms of the black, and placing the trumpet to his lips, said, in a distinct voice, as if addressing the skipper,
“We shall go about at midnight. Remember the directions I gave you this morning. Bon voyage, madame!” He shook his trumpet playfully at the boy, who put out his chubby arms with delight to the speaker, and then hammered away with great glee on the crown of his bearer’s head.
“Thank you, sir,” said Captain Blunt, who was leaning over the rail; and then turning to his mate, he added,
“Them Yankees, Mr. Binks, always treats a merchantman like gentlemen on the high seas, and I never knew one on ’em to turn their backs on friends or foes. What a pity they ever cut adrift from the Old Country! Howsoever, matey, it can’t be helped, and you had better up with the port studding-sails, hang out all the rags, and make the old drogher walk.”
Now came the rippling