Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Eleven.H.M.S. Wasp.We sighted theWaspimmediately upon rounding Gallows Point. She was lying quite by herself, down in the most southerly bight of the Hole, and little more than a cable’s length from the beach; consequently we had a clear, uninterrupted view of her the moment that we cleared the Point; and she was lying broadside-on to us, with her head pointing to the southward.The first thing that impressed me about her was her diminutiveness; in comparison with some of the craft lying in the Hole she looked little more than a mere boat, and the idea of actually going to sea and attempting serious work in such a cockle-shell struck me as little short of an absurdity. But that feeling wore off a bit as we closed with her; and the next thing to attract my attention was the great beauty of her outline. She sat very low upon the water; had an abnormally long, overhanging counter; and her spring, or sheer, was so great that, low as she sat, her bow stood high and dominant above the water. She was painted black from her rail to her copper, the top edge of which was about six inches above her load-line; and she had only her two lower-masts and her bowsprit standing. But her masts were magnificent sticks, lofty enough, apparently, to spread all the canvas that she could possibly carry, without any need of topmasts, and both spars were stepped well forward; the mainmast, indeed, seemed to be almost amidships, giving one a very clear idea of the enormous area which her mainsail would present when fully set. It was not, however, until we got close to her, and Carline caused his boatmen to pull slowly round her, that I detected what the Admiral and the master-attendant meant when they had spoken of the freakish peculiarities of her model; then, indeed, it became apparent that her designer had, as Sir Peter had said, literally turned her lines end for end, as it were. For she had absolutely no “straight of breadth” at all; her sides were as round as an apple, and her long bow, shaped like a wedge with curved instead of straight sides, with just a suggestion of hollowness of the water-line as it approached the stem, started almost as far aft as the point where her mainmast was stepped; while her run, instead of fining away toward the stern-post like the tail of a fish, was quite full, sweeping round under her counter in a semicircle. Then it was that I understood why her counter was so abnormally long; it was not merely a fancy on the part of her designer, intended to give her a smart, rakish appearance, it was for the purpose of giving her, despite the fulness of her run, a clean, easy delivery. Yes, as I looked at her critically, studying her lines from every possible point of view, I could believe that she would prove a quite extraordinary sailer; for there was nothing in that long, keen bow for the water to grip, the knifelike stem would sheer into it, and the gently expanding sides would shoulder it aside with scarcely any resistance, leaving it to close in again aft about her stern-post with a nip that would add to her speed, just as one may make a nut spring from one’s fingers by merely pressing upon it. And she would be a good sea-boat, too, for the bow flared out over the water in such a fashion as to lift her over any sea, however steep. Yes, I liked the outside look of her amazingly, and no longer thought the idea of going to sea in such a craft mere folly; on the contrary, I longed for the moment when I should have the opportunity to test her capabilities.Having scrutinised the exterior of my new command to my heart’s content, we went alongside and boarded her. Her gangway was open; and so little freeboard did she show at this point—Carline measured it and found it to be exactly four-feet—that we were able to spring from the boat’s gunwale to the schooner’s deck without difficulty, and without the need for a side-ladder. I had by this time quite forgotten my first impression of diminutiveness in connection with the craft, and the moment that I passed through the gangway and stood upon her deck I gained a new impression, namely that of spaciousness. For she was extraordinarily beamy; her hatchways were small, and there was nothing in the way of fittings of any kind to cumber up her decks; indeed, so far as actual room to move about upon was concerned, her quarter-deck seemed to be quite as spacious as that of theEuropa. She was flush-decked fore and aft, and abaft the immensely lofty mainmast there was nothing but the companion, with a seat and lockers on either side of it, a fine big skylight, a very handsome brass binnacle, and the wheel. Her bulwarks were only three feet high, with a fine, solid teak rail; and she was built of hard wood—oak and elm—throughout, and copper fastened.Carline having unlocked the companion doors, we went below, and found ourselves in a really beautiful little cabin, elegantly fitted up, painted white and gold, well lighted and ventilated from above by the big skylight, and with three large, circular ports on each side as well. There were nice wide, comfortable lockers on each side, running fore and aft, and a fine, solid, handsomely carved mahogany table in the centre; but the cabin looked bare, for all the fittings of every kind had been removed and put into store. Then, abaft the main cabin, there was a small but exceedingly comfortable-looking stateroom, with standing bedplace, drawers beneath, wash-stand, etcetera, and lighted by two circular ports, one at the head and one at the foot of the bedplace, which ran athwartships.From the cabin we passed into the main hold; and I saw at once that this could easily be fitted up and converted into a berth-deck for all hands by merely running a few deck beams across, laying a deck, and running up a bulkhead. We spent the whole morning aboard, making voluminous notes of the various alterations that would be needed to fit the little vessel for the new service to which she was destined; and that same afternoon she was unmoored, taken alongside the wharf, and a strong gang of dockyard workmen went aboard to begin upon the most obviously necessary work, such as taking out her ballast prior to giving her interior a thorough cleaning, and so on.That night, at the Pen, after the guests had all left, Sir Peter called upon me to give an account of my day’s doings, to tell him what I thought of theWasp, and to produce and read my list of alterations needed to complete the equipment of the schooner. Of all of these he graciously approved, adding a few suggestions of his own; and on the following morning, after going on board the hooker with me and examining her inside and out, he gave orders for the whole of the work to be proceeded with forthwith. As there were no other ships in port refitting at the moment, it was a slack time at the dockyard, and almost the whole of its resources were available to expedite the work, in consequence of which the schooner was ready for sea a fortnight from the day on which I first boarded her.Meanwhile, the Admiral had made out and presented to me my acting order; while, for my own part, I had been busy all day and every day, either at the dockyard, superintending the work being done to theWasp, or in hunting up a crew for her. And as I attached very considerable importance to the quality of my crew, and was quite determined to have the very best I could obtain, a large proportion of my time was spent in hunting for good men. Here it was that I found the services of Henderson, late quartermaster of theEuropa, of especial value, for not only did he enter for the schooner, as he had promised he would when I ran up against him as I was on my way to pay my first visit to theWasp, but, being equally as anxious as myself to have the little vessel well manned, he had persuaded four good men—like himself formerly of theEuropa, wounded in our fight with the brigantine and now convalescent—to join, thus forming at a stroke the nucleus of a first-rate crew. But he had done a good deal more than this; for in addition to the four men above referred to there were aboard the guardship about a dozen others recently discharged from the hospital and only requiring a few days of pure ocean air to set them on their pins again, and he had persuaded these also to enter. Even this, however, did not complete my obligations to the guardship, for there were aboard her three midshipmen, an assistant surgeon, and a captain’s clerk, all of whom had been separated from their ships from some chance cause, and I secured them all; the eldest of the midshipmen—named Willoughby—as master, while the other two, very quiet, respectable lads, named respectively Dundas and Hinton, I took more for their health’s sake than for any other reason. The assistant surgeon was named Saunders—him I shipped as surgeon—while Millar, the captain’s clerk, came with me as purser; I obtained a gunner’s warrant for Henderson, to his great delight; and my remaining officers consisted of a fine, smart boatswain’s mate, named Pearce, who came as boatswain, and a carpenter’s mate named Mills, who came as carpenter. In addition to these, I had a cabin steward, a cook, and a crew of forty-four men and four boys; I therefore regarded myself as excellently equipped, so far as my crew were concerned. Unfortunately, the schooner was too small to carry an armament to which such a fine crew could do full justice, the utmost that she would carry, with anything like safety, being six long expounders; and even with the weight of these on her deck she seemed to be just a trifle more tender than I altogether liked. It was, however, the best that we could do with her, and with that I had to be content.Having reported the schooner as ready for sea, and received my orders from the Admiral, we slipped from Number 9 buoy on a certain morning, immediately after breakfast, and proceeded to work out to sea, under single-reefed mainsail, foresail, fore staysail, and Number 2 jib, in the teeth of a fiery sea-breeze that made the palms at Port Royal Point assume the aspect of so many umbrellas turned inside-out, and whirled the sand up from the Palisades in blinding clouds to deposit it again in the harbour and add to the magnitude of the shoal that is steadily encroaching upon the deep-water area.The little hooker became lively and began to pull at her cable, as though impatient to be off, the moment that the hands tailed on to the throat and peak-halliards of her immense mainsail, and proceeded to hoist away; and when, having set the sail—which, by the way, was beautifully cut, and stood as flat as a board—we slipped, and hauled aft the jib-sheet, she heeled to the pressure of the wind as though preparing to spring, and, with a little swirl of water about her sharp stem as she paid off, proceeded to gather way, and the next moment was sheering through the smooth water of the harbour like a hungry dolphin in pursuit of a shoal of flying-fish. With all her sheets flattened-in she came-to until she was looking up within three points of the wind, careening to her bearings and sweeping as rapidly and almost as noiselessly as a wreath of mist driving to leeward, the only sound she made being a soft hissing at her cutwater as her sharp bow clove the ripples and ploughed up a glass-like sheet of water on either side of it. So closely did she hug the wind that we were able to shave close past the red buoy which marks the edge of Church shoal, handsomely weathering Number 2 buoy, skimming across the De Horsey Patch, and shaving past the buoy on the Harbour shoal. By this time we were out from under the shelter of Port Royal Point, and were beginning to feel the first of the jump that the sea-breeze was kicking up outside; but it appeared to make practically no difference in our speed, our abnormally long, keen, wedge-like bow seemed to cleave the seas without effort or resistance as they came at us, while the flaring overhang lifted the little craft buoyantly over them, with nothing worse than a small playful flash and patter of spray in over the weather cathead to tell of the encounter. It would be difficult to say whether astonishment or delight was the feeling that predominated in the breasts of all hands of us, fore and aft, as we stood watching the really marvellous performance of the little clipper while beating out of harbour. It was not her speed only—although that seemed phenomenal, for she swept past every other craft that was going our way as though they had been at anchor; her weatherliness astounded us quite as much as did her speed, for she looked up a good three points higher than did our square-rigged neighbours, while her oil-smooth wake trailed away astern as straight as a ruled line, with no apparent inclination to trend a hairbreadth towards her weather quarter. She seemed to make no leeway at all!“Well!” exclaimed Henderson, who was standing by me, close abaft the weather main rigging, watching—as I was—the rapid sliding past us of the various objects ashore, “I’ve heard people speak of a ship as sailin’ like a witch, but I’m only now comin’ to rightly understand just exactly what that expression means; it means goin’ along precisely as if you was shot out of a gun! Why, Mr Delamere, I don’t believe as there’s anything afloat that can touch us—not, at all events, in moderately smooth water. What we shall do in a heavy sea remains to be seen; and we shall soon find that out, I reckon, for it’s all foamin’ white away out there in the offing; but I’ve a notion that she’ll go over it all like a duck, provided that we don’t drive her too hard. Look at that, sir,”—as the schooner leapt from the crest of a sea into the hollow beyond, and the foam buzzed and boiled to the level of her lee head-rail and then went glancing away dizzily aft—“ain’t that just perfectly beautiful? Never shipped a drop, she didn’t! And there again! My eyes! but sheisa beauty, and no mistake.”“She is certainly behaving wonderfully well,” I admitted, my voice all a-quiver with pride. “How does she steer? Is she easy on her helm?” I demanded of the man at the wheel.“Gripes just the leastest bit in the world, sir, but nothin’ worth speakin’ about. I could steer her wi’ one hand,” answered the man; and to prove his words he placed one hand behind him and kept it there for a minute or two while he grasped a spoke of the wheel with the other.We had by this time brought the Beacon shoal about one point abaft the weather-beam, and I was of opinion that we could weather it on the next tack; I therefore gave the word, “Ready about—Helm’s a-lee!” and directed the helmsman to ease down the helm. He let go the wheel for a moment, and the little hooker at once came to the wind with her head-sails slatting and threshing as she spilled the wind out of them; then he began to pull the wheel over toward him, and with one terrific dive into a sea that came rushing at her, and which she split into two showers of diamond spray that leapt half as high as her foremast before it came driving aft in a shower that nearly drenched us to the skin, round she swept like a gun upon its pivot, and was full again upon the other tack almost before we could blink our eyelids. The beauty of a fore-and-after is that she practically works herself, all that is needed being three or four hands on the forecastle to trim over the jib and fore sheets as she comes round. It was simply child’s play compared with the complicated manoeuvres that attend the working of a full-rigged ship, and Henderson laughed aloud in his delight at the simplicity of it.“Why, Mr Delamere,” he declared, “it’s like sailin’ theEuropa’slaunch, only easier. The launch never stayed as smartly as that, not so long as I’ve knowed her!”We weathered the Beacon shoal, with room to spare, as I expected we should; and then kept away, with slightly eased sheets, for the passage between Gun and Rackum Cays, after negotiating which we shaped a course for Cow Bay and Yallah Points, off the latter of which we arrived shortly after six bells in the forenoon watch had struck. Still hugging the coast as closely as possible, we arrived off Port Morant about four bells in the afternoon watch, about which time we found the sea-breeze to be merging gradually into the Trade-wind and heading us so badly that at length we were obliged to heave about and head off-shore. Here we soon got into such a boil of a sea that the little hooker threatened to smother herself, and it became necessary for us to haul down a second and a third reef, and to take the jib off her, after which she went along quite comfortably, shipping nothing worse than an occasional sprinkling of spray over her weather-bow. At eight bells of the second dog-watch we handsomely weathered Morant Point on our way out through the Windward Channel, it being my purpose to work out through the Caycos Passage, and then cruise to and fro athwart and to windward of the Windward Passages—that being the cruising-ground which I believed the pirates would be most likely to haunt.Shortly before daybreak, on the third morning after leaving Port Royal, we found ourselves rapidly drawing into smooth water—so rapidly, indeed, that Pearce, the boatswain, whose watch it was, came down in some alarm and roused me out, fearing that Willoughby, the midshipman who was acting as master, had made a mistake in his reckoning, and that we were about to blunder on to some danger or another. I was able, however, to set the good man’s mind at rest by explaining that we were doubtless drawing in under the lee of the Caycos Bank, and that therefore the water might naturally be expected to smoothen. Nevertheless, feeling that I had had a good night’s rest, and understanding from Pearce that day would dawn in less than half-an-hour’s time, I turned out and, slipping into my trousers and jacket, went up on deck. And very glad I was that I had done so, for I was thus enabled to observe a very curious natural phenomenon, which one might knock about in those seas for years without seeing, for the simple reason that the circumstances must be favourable or the phenomenon is not visible.The Caycos Bank is a shoal lying some sixty-eight miles off Monte Christi, on the north coast of Hayti. It measures about the same distance from its north-western to its south-eastern extremity, and is about sixty-two miles across from east to west at its widest point; it is consequently of considerable extent, and from the fact that the depth of water over it ranges from six feet to eighteen feet it is not without its dangers, and must be approached with due caution, especially during the hours of darkness. In daylight the danger is not nearly so great, because the north-eastern and north-western edges of the shoal are fringed by a number of cays among which the sea breaks heavily, while the whole surface of the shoal is white water. And it is this same white water which gives rise to the phenomenon above referred to, locally known as “Bank Blink.” It is simply the reflection of the phosphorescence of the water in the clouds above; and the darker and more overcast the night, the more distinctly is the reflection seen. The phenomenon is, of course, quite natural and easily to be accounted for, yet its occurrence can scarcely be regarded as less than providential; for there can be no doubt whatever that its appearance in the sky has often been the means of warning navigators that they were approaching this danger, and so causing them to haul off in time to avoid shipwreck.Upon the night in question, when I first saw it, I found, upon going on deck, that the darkness was profound, the sky being so completely obscured by clouds that not so much as a single star was visible. But away to windward, ranging from about two points on the weather-bow round to square abeam, the clouds from almost overhead to within some fifteen degrees of the horizon were faintly yet quite perceptibly tinged greenish hue, the tinge being strongest about midway between our weather-bow and beam. Pearce had noticed it, it appeared, when I came to question him about it, and had thought that it might possibly portend a change of weather until he had looked at the barometer and found it inclined to rise; then he had become alarmed by the smoothing of the water, which seemed to him far more portentous than the light on the clouds.I had not been on deck more than a quarter of an hour when the blackness under the lower edge of the bank blink away over our starboard cathead began to pale, first to a cold slaty-grey, and from that, by rapid gradations, to a rich purple, then to crimson, and from crimson to an orange tint so deep as to be almost scarlet, beneath which the horizon loomed out black as ink, the intervening space of water lightening, as it swept toward us, until at the distance of a couple of miles it became a livid bluish-white. This marked the western edge of the shoal, and sufficiently accounted for the smoothing of the deep-water in which we were sailing.As the orange light spread north and south from the point at which it had originated, at the same time reaching upward from the horizon, the bank blink began to fade, or rather to become merged in and overpowered by it; and the shapes of the heavy, lowering clouds that overhung us began to reveal themselves, their lower edges here and there suddenly flushing into hues of the richest yet most delicate rose that rapidly strengthened first into scarlet and then to burning gold as the rays of the yet unrisen sun smote upon them. Presently, in the midst of the rich orange light that was now flashing up on the eastern and north-eastern horizon, there emerged a shape of indigo, practically flat-topped, but with two small protuberances, one at each end, which, by a stretch of the imagination, might be termed hills, rising to a height of perhaps sixty or seventy feet. This was the island of West Caycos, the most westerly of the cays on the bank, and ten minutes later we were under its lee and within less than a cable’s length from the beach.But what a change had taken place in the aspect of sea and sky during those ten minutes! As we stood, spellbound, watching the gorgeous changes of colour that were taking place along the eastern horizon, a broad ray of white light, the edges slightly tinged with violet, suddenly shot vertically aloft from the horizon, piercing the cloud-masses as though with the thrust of a spear; and as though there had been magic in the touch those cloud-masses at once began to break up and melt away, assuming, ere they vanished, every conceivable tint of the rainbow, from the deepest and richest hue of purple, through crimson and scarlet, to purest molten gold. And while these wonderful changes of colour were taking place, shaft after shaft of living, quivering light flashed into the sky, radiating like the spokes of a wheel against the warm primrose tints of the horizon—merging by imperceptible degrees into the pure, delicate azure of the sky revealed by the breaking up and dissolution of the clouds—to be followed, a few seconds later, by the appearance above the horizon of a great rim of blazing, palpitating golden fire, the level rays from which shot along the tumbling surface of the ocean, splashing it with a million scintillating points of dazzling light, as the crests of the tiny wavelets curled over and broke under the whipping of the freshening breeze. Then, while we still stood watching, a gauzy veil of rain—“the pride of the morning”—swept down upon us, blotting out the glories of the sunrise for a brief minute or two, then driving away to leeward, leaving our sails and deck dark with wet, and revealing the sun, now fully risen, and the sky clear and pure to windward.With the freshening of the breeze we rapidly brought West Caycos first abeam and then on our weather quarter, while the high land of Providenciales grew upon the weather-bow. Here we were very nearly getting into an exceedingly awkward scrape, for while I went below to prepare for my morning bath under the head-pump, after witnessing the magnificent sunrise that I have endeavoured to describe, the wind suddenly fell light and died away; and then, while I was dressing after my bath, the sea-breeze suddenly sprang up, blowing half a gale; and there were we, not three miles from the land, with as dangerous a stretch of lee-shore as is to be found in all this region abeam of us. Fortunately the schooner’s extraordinary weatherliness stood us in good stead, and enabled us to claw off, but for which we should probably have left her bones, if not our own, there. Our mid-afternoon observations showed us to be in latitude 22 degrees 21 minutes North, and longitude 71 degrees 57 minutes West, which position I considered far enough out for our purpose; we therefore hove about and, under short canvas, proceeded to work our way slowly to the southward and eastward, on the lookout for anything that might chance to come our way.For several days after this nothing of moment occurred. Finally we found ourselves some two hundred miles to the northward and eastward of the Mona Passage, and I was debating within myself whether to bear up and go back over the ground which I had just traversed, or to continue on and have a look at Porto Rico. But while I was thinking over the question, the lookout in the fore crosstrees reported a sail to windward, quickly succeeded by several others, whereupon we made sail and shaped a course that would enable us to get a somewhat clearer view of them, and, if necessary, to intercept them.The lookout aloft soon reported that the leading ship was under short canvas, while those which immediately followed her were covered to their trucks, and showing studdingsails as well, from which piece of information it was not difficult for me to guess that the strangers to windward consisted of a convoy of merchantmen, with its escort of men-o’-war. This conjecture of mine soon proved to be correct, for within half-an-hour of their first appearance the leading ships were in sight from the deck, and we made out the biggest of them to be a 74-gun ship, the others in sight obviously being merchantmen. As we closed, with ensign and pennant hoisted, the commodore signalled me to come alongside and send a boat aboard, which I did, going in the boat myself to see what news I could pick up. I thus learned that the ship I had boarded was theGoliath, the captain of which was the commodore of the squadron of convoying ships, consisting of—in addition to theGoliath—the frigatesTourmalineandSpartiate, and the gun-brigsVulcan, Wolverine, Spitfire, andTortoise; the convoy consisting of three hundred and eighty-seven sail of all sorts, bound to the various West Indian ports. I informed the commodore of the nature of the duty upon which I had been sent out by the Admiral on the station, and inquired whether any suspicious craft had been sighted during the passage; to which he grimly replied in the affirmative, but added that they had all been accounted for, and would be found, with prize-crews aboard them, in the main body of the fleet. I stayed on board the seventy-four for a couple of hours, gathering what news the inmates of the ward-room could give me; during which theWasp, under boom-foresail and fore-staysail only, easily kept company with the ponderous two-decker, looking in comparison with her “no bigger as my thumb,” as the negroes would say. She excited a great deal of curiosity, on account of her very peculiar model, and likewise a very considerable amount of admiration as she swept along lightly and buoyantly as a seagull over the long undulations of the heavy swell that was running. It was the first time that I had ever beheld her under sail, from outside her own bulwarks, and although, looked down upon from the lofty poop of theGoliath, she seemed to be the merest cockle-shell, small enough to be hoisted inboard and stowed upon the two-decker’s main hatch, there was still a look of staunchness about her that, coupled with the beauty of her form and the rakish sauciness of her entire appearance, made me feel very proud of the fact that I commanded her, as well as very anxious for an opportunity to show of what she and her crew were capable.Having extracted all the information I could obtain—which, after all, was not very much—I made my adieux, descended the side, stepped into my boat, and returned to the schooner. Upon rejoining her, we made sail and hauled to the wind, in the hope of finding some picarooning craft hanging on to the skirts of the convoy; but although we hovered in the wake of the latter until the very last of them had disappeared beneath the southern horizon, our hopes were vain; and, finally, I decided to bear up for the Navidad, or Ship Bank, proceed through the Sea of Hayti as far as the entrance of the Windward Channel, and then, if still unsuccessful in my search for traces of the pirate, to work my way back to the Atlantic by the Crooked Island Passage, exploring some of the cays in Austral Bay on the way, they seeming to me to afford considerable facilities for the establishment of a pirate depot.

We sighted theWaspimmediately upon rounding Gallows Point. She was lying quite by herself, down in the most southerly bight of the Hole, and little more than a cable’s length from the beach; consequently we had a clear, uninterrupted view of her the moment that we cleared the Point; and she was lying broadside-on to us, with her head pointing to the southward.

The first thing that impressed me about her was her diminutiveness; in comparison with some of the craft lying in the Hole she looked little more than a mere boat, and the idea of actually going to sea and attempting serious work in such a cockle-shell struck me as little short of an absurdity. But that feeling wore off a bit as we closed with her; and the next thing to attract my attention was the great beauty of her outline. She sat very low upon the water; had an abnormally long, overhanging counter; and her spring, or sheer, was so great that, low as she sat, her bow stood high and dominant above the water. She was painted black from her rail to her copper, the top edge of which was about six inches above her load-line; and she had only her two lower-masts and her bowsprit standing. But her masts were magnificent sticks, lofty enough, apparently, to spread all the canvas that she could possibly carry, without any need of topmasts, and both spars were stepped well forward; the mainmast, indeed, seemed to be almost amidships, giving one a very clear idea of the enormous area which her mainsail would present when fully set. It was not, however, until we got close to her, and Carline caused his boatmen to pull slowly round her, that I detected what the Admiral and the master-attendant meant when they had spoken of the freakish peculiarities of her model; then, indeed, it became apparent that her designer had, as Sir Peter had said, literally turned her lines end for end, as it were. For she had absolutely no “straight of breadth” at all; her sides were as round as an apple, and her long bow, shaped like a wedge with curved instead of straight sides, with just a suggestion of hollowness of the water-line as it approached the stem, started almost as far aft as the point where her mainmast was stepped; while her run, instead of fining away toward the stern-post like the tail of a fish, was quite full, sweeping round under her counter in a semicircle. Then it was that I understood why her counter was so abnormally long; it was not merely a fancy on the part of her designer, intended to give her a smart, rakish appearance, it was for the purpose of giving her, despite the fulness of her run, a clean, easy delivery. Yes, as I looked at her critically, studying her lines from every possible point of view, I could believe that she would prove a quite extraordinary sailer; for there was nothing in that long, keen bow for the water to grip, the knifelike stem would sheer into it, and the gently expanding sides would shoulder it aside with scarcely any resistance, leaving it to close in again aft about her stern-post with a nip that would add to her speed, just as one may make a nut spring from one’s fingers by merely pressing upon it. And she would be a good sea-boat, too, for the bow flared out over the water in such a fashion as to lift her over any sea, however steep. Yes, I liked the outside look of her amazingly, and no longer thought the idea of going to sea in such a craft mere folly; on the contrary, I longed for the moment when I should have the opportunity to test her capabilities.

Having scrutinised the exterior of my new command to my heart’s content, we went alongside and boarded her. Her gangway was open; and so little freeboard did she show at this point—Carline measured it and found it to be exactly four-feet—that we were able to spring from the boat’s gunwale to the schooner’s deck without difficulty, and without the need for a side-ladder. I had by this time quite forgotten my first impression of diminutiveness in connection with the craft, and the moment that I passed through the gangway and stood upon her deck I gained a new impression, namely that of spaciousness. For she was extraordinarily beamy; her hatchways were small, and there was nothing in the way of fittings of any kind to cumber up her decks; indeed, so far as actual room to move about upon was concerned, her quarter-deck seemed to be quite as spacious as that of theEuropa. She was flush-decked fore and aft, and abaft the immensely lofty mainmast there was nothing but the companion, with a seat and lockers on either side of it, a fine big skylight, a very handsome brass binnacle, and the wheel. Her bulwarks were only three feet high, with a fine, solid teak rail; and she was built of hard wood—oak and elm—throughout, and copper fastened.

Carline having unlocked the companion doors, we went below, and found ourselves in a really beautiful little cabin, elegantly fitted up, painted white and gold, well lighted and ventilated from above by the big skylight, and with three large, circular ports on each side as well. There were nice wide, comfortable lockers on each side, running fore and aft, and a fine, solid, handsomely carved mahogany table in the centre; but the cabin looked bare, for all the fittings of every kind had been removed and put into store. Then, abaft the main cabin, there was a small but exceedingly comfortable-looking stateroom, with standing bedplace, drawers beneath, wash-stand, etcetera, and lighted by two circular ports, one at the head and one at the foot of the bedplace, which ran athwartships.

From the cabin we passed into the main hold; and I saw at once that this could easily be fitted up and converted into a berth-deck for all hands by merely running a few deck beams across, laying a deck, and running up a bulkhead. We spent the whole morning aboard, making voluminous notes of the various alterations that would be needed to fit the little vessel for the new service to which she was destined; and that same afternoon she was unmoored, taken alongside the wharf, and a strong gang of dockyard workmen went aboard to begin upon the most obviously necessary work, such as taking out her ballast prior to giving her interior a thorough cleaning, and so on.

That night, at the Pen, after the guests had all left, Sir Peter called upon me to give an account of my day’s doings, to tell him what I thought of theWasp, and to produce and read my list of alterations needed to complete the equipment of the schooner. Of all of these he graciously approved, adding a few suggestions of his own; and on the following morning, after going on board the hooker with me and examining her inside and out, he gave orders for the whole of the work to be proceeded with forthwith. As there were no other ships in port refitting at the moment, it was a slack time at the dockyard, and almost the whole of its resources were available to expedite the work, in consequence of which the schooner was ready for sea a fortnight from the day on which I first boarded her.

Meanwhile, the Admiral had made out and presented to me my acting order; while, for my own part, I had been busy all day and every day, either at the dockyard, superintending the work being done to theWasp, or in hunting up a crew for her. And as I attached very considerable importance to the quality of my crew, and was quite determined to have the very best I could obtain, a large proportion of my time was spent in hunting for good men. Here it was that I found the services of Henderson, late quartermaster of theEuropa, of especial value, for not only did he enter for the schooner, as he had promised he would when I ran up against him as I was on my way to pay my first visit to theWasp, but, being equally as anxious as myself to have the little vessel well manned, he had persuaded four good men—like himself formerly of theEuropa, wounded in our fight with the brigantine and now convalescent—to join, thus forming at a stroke the nucleus of a first-rate crew. But he had done a good deal more than this; for in addition to the four men above referred to there were aboard the guardship about a dozen others recently discharged from the hospital and only requiring a few days of pure ocean air to set them on their pins again, and he had persuaded these also to enter. Even this, however, did not complete my obligations to the guardship, for there were aboard her three midshipmen, an assistant surgeon, and a captain’s clerk, all of whom had been separated from their ships from some chance cause, and I secured them all; the eldest of the midshipmen—named Willoughby—as master, while the other two, very quiet, respectable lads, named respectively Dundas and Hinton, I took more for their health’s sake than for any other reason. The assistant surgeon was named Saunders—him I shipped as surgeon—while Millar, the captain’s clerk, came with me as purser; I obtained a gunner’s warrant for Henderson, to his great delight; and my remaining officers consisted of a fine, smart boatswain’s mate, named Pearce, who came as boatswain, and a carpenter’s mate named Mills, who came as carpenter. In addition to these, I had a cabin steward, a cook, and a crew of forty-four men and four boys; I therefore regarded myself as excellently equipped, so far as my crew were concerned. Unfortunately, the schooner was too small to carry an armament to which such a fine crew could do full justice, the utmost that she would carry, with anything like safety, being six long expounders; and even with the weight of these on her deck she seemed to be just a trifle more tender than I altogether liked. It was, however, the best that we could do with her, and with that I had to be content.

Having reported the schooner as ready for sea, and received my orders from the Admiral, we slipped from Number 9 buoy on a certain morning, immediately after breakfast, and proceeded to work out to sea, under single-reefed mainsail, foresail, fore staysail, and Number 2 jib, in the teeth of a fiery sea-breeze that made the palms at Port Royal Point assume the aspect of so many umbrellas turned inside-out, and whirled the sand up from the Palisades in blinding clouds to deposit it again in the harbour and add to the magnitude of the shoal that is steadily encroaching upon the deep-water area.

The little hooker became lively and began to pull at her cable, as though impatient to be off, the moment that the hands tailed on to the throat and peak-halliards of her immense mainsail, and proceeded to hoist away; and when, having set the sail—which, by the way, was beautifully cut, and stood as flat as a board—we slipped, and hauled aft the jib-sheet, she heeled to the pressure of the wind as though preparing to spring, and, with a little swirl of water about her sharp stem as she paid off, proceeded to gather way, and the next moment was sheering through the smooth water of the harbour like a hungry dolphin in pursuit of a shoal of flying-fish. With all her sheets flattened-in she came-to until she was looking up within three points of the wind, careening to her bearings and sweeping as rapidly and almost as noiselessly as a wreath of mist driving to leeward, the only sound she made being a soft hissing at her cutwater as her sharp bow clove the ripples and ploughed up a glass-like sheet of water on either side of it. So closely did she hug the wind that we were able to shave close past the red buoy which marks the edge of Church shoal, handsomely weathering Number 2 buoy, skimming across the De Horsey Patch, and shaving past the buoy on the Harbour shoal. By this time we were out from under the shelter of Port Royal Point, and were beginning to feel the first of the jump that the sea-breeze was kicking up outside; but it appeared to make practically no difference in our speed, our abnormally long, keen, wedge-like bow seemed to cleave the seas without effort or resistance as they came at us, while the flaring overhang lifted the little craft buoyantly over them, with nothing worse than a small playful flash and patter of spray in over the weather cathead to tell of the encounter. It would be difficult to say whether astonishment or delight was the feeling that predominated in the breasts of all hands of us, fore and aft, as we stood watching the really marvellous performance of the little clipper while beating out of harbour. It was not her speed only—although that seemed phenomenal, for she swept past every other craft that was going our way as though they had been at anchor; her weatherliness astounded us quite as much as did her speed, for she looked up a good three points higher than did our square-rigged neighbours, while her oil-smooth wake trailed away astern as straight as a ruled line, with no apparent inclination to trend a hairbreadth towards her weather quarter. She seemed to make no leeway at all!

“Well!” exclaimed Henderson, who was standing by me, close abaft the weather main rigging, watching—as I was—the rapid sliding past us of the various objects ashore, “I’ve heard people speak of a ship as sailin’ like a witch, but I’m only now comin’ to rightly understand just exactly what that expression means; it means goin’ along precisely as if you was shot out of a gun! Why, Mr Delamere, I don’t believe as there’s anything afloat that can touch us—not, at all events, in moderately smooth water. What we shall do in a heavy sea remains to be seen; and we shall soon find that out, I reckon, for it’s all foamin’ white away out there in the offing; but I’ve a notion that she’ll go over it all like a duck, provided that we don’t drive her too hard. Look at that, sir,”—as the schooner leapt from the crest of a sea into the hollow beyond, and the foam buzzed and boiled to the level of her lee head-rail and then went glancing away dizzily aft—“ain’t that just perfectly beautiful? Never shipped a drop, she didn’t! And there again! My eyes! but sheisa beauty, and no mistake.”

“She is certainly behaving wonderfully well,” I admitted, my voice all a-quiver with pride. “How does she steer? Is she easy on her helm?” I demanded of the man at the wheel.

“Gripes just the leastest bit in the world, sir, but nothin’ worth speakin’ about. I could steer her wi’ one hand,” answered the man; and to prove his words he placed one hand behind him and kept it there for a minute or two while he grasped a spoke of the wheel with the other.

We had by this time brought the Beacon shoal about one point abaft the weather-beam, and I was of opinion that we could weather it on the next tack; I therefore gave the word, “Ready about—Helm’s a-lee!” and directed the helmsman to ease down the helm. He let go the wheel for a moment, and the little hooker at once came to the wind with her head-sails slatting and threshing as she spilled the wind out of them; then he began to pull the wheel over toward him, and with one terrific dive into a sea that came rushing at her, and which she split into two showers of diamond spray that leapt half as high as her foremast before it came driving aft in a shower that nearly drenched us to the skin, round she swept like a gun upon its pivot, and was full again upon the other tack almost before we could blink our eyelids. The beauty of a fore-and-after is that she practically works herself, all that is needed being three or four hands on the forecastle to trim over the jib and fore sheets as she comes round. It was simply child’s play compared with the complicated manoeuvres that attend the working of a full-rigged ship, and Henderson laughed aloud in his delight at the simplicity of it.

“Why, Mr Delamere,” he declared, “it’s like sailin’ theEuropa’slaunch, only easier. The launch never stayed as smartly as that, not so long as I’ve knowed her!”

We weathered the Beacon shoal, with room to spare, as I expected we should; and then kept away, with slightly eased sheets, for the passage between Gun and Rackum Cays, after negotiating which we shaped a course for Cow Bay and Yallah Points, off the latter of which we arrived shortly after six bells in the forenoon watch had struck. Still hugging the coast as closely as possible, we arrived off Port Morant about four bells in the afternoon watch, about which time we found the sea-breeze to be merging gradually into the Trade-wind and heading us so badly that at length we were obliged to heave about and head off-shore. Here we soon got into such a boil of a sea that the little hooker threatened to smother herself, and it became necessary for us to haul down a second and a third reef, and to take the jib off her, after which she went along quite comfortably, shipping nothing worse than an occasional sprinkling of spray over her weather-bow. At eight bells of the second dog-watch we handsomely weathered Morant Point on our way out through the Windward Channel, it being my purpose to work out through the Caycos Passage, and then cruise to and fro athwart and to windward of the Windward Passages—that being the cruising-ground which I believed the pirates would be most likely to haunt.

Shortly before daybreak, on the third morning after leaving Port Royal, we found ourselves rapidly drawing into smooth water—so rapidly, indeed, that Pearce, the boatswain, whose watch it was, came down in some alarm and roused me out, fearing that Willoughby, the midshipman who was acting as master, had made a mistake in his reckoning, and that we were about to blunder on to some danger or another. I was able, however, to set the good man’s mind at rest by explaining that we were doubtless drawing in under the lee of the Caycos Bank, and that therefore the water might naturally be expected to smoothen. Nevertheless, feeling that I had had a good night’s rest, and understanding from Pearce that day would dawn in less than half-an-hour’s time, I turned out and, slipping into my trousers and jacket, went up on deck. And very glad I was that I had done so, for I was thus enabled to observe a very curious natural phenomenon, which one might knock about in those seas for years without seeing, for the simple reason that the circumstances must be favourable or the phenomenon is not visible.

The Caycos Bank is a shoal lying some sixty-eight miles off Monte Christi, on the north coast of Hayti. It measures about the same distance from its north-western to its south-eastern extremity, and is about sixty-two miles across from east to west at its widest point; it is consequently of considerable extent, and from the fact that the depth of water over it ranges from six feet to eighteen feet it is not without its dangers, and must be approached with due caution, especially during the hours of darkness. In daylight the danger is not nearly so great, because the north-eastern and north-western edges of the shoal are fringed by a number of cays among which the sea breaks heavily, while the whole surface of the shoal is white water. And it is this same white water which gives rise to the phenomenon above referred to, locally known as “Bank Blink.” It is simply the reflection of the phosphorescence of the water in the clouds above; and the darker and more overcast the night, the more distinctly is the reflection seen. The phenomenon is, of course, quite natural and easily to be accounted for, yet its occurrence can scarcely be regarded as less than providential; for there can be no doubt whatever that its appearance in the sky has often been the means of warning navigators that they were approaching this danger, and so causing them to haul off in time to avoid shipwreck.

Upon the night in question, when I first saw it, I found, upon going on deck, that the darkness was profound, the sky being so completely obscured by clouds that not so much as a single star was visible. But away to windward, ranging from about two points on the weather-bow round to square abeam, the clouds from almost overhead to within some fifteen degrees of the horizon were faintly yet quite perceptibly tinged greenish hue, the tinge being strongest about midway between our weather-bow and beam. Pearce had noticed it, it appeared, when I came to question him about it, and had thought that it might possibly portend a change of weather until he had looked at the barometer and found it inclined to rise; then he had become alarmed by the smoothing of the water, which seemed to him far more portentous than the light on the clouds.

I had not been on deck more than a quarter of an hour when the blackness under the lower edge of the bank blink away over our starboard cathead began to pale, first to a cold slaty-grey, and from that, by rapid gradations, to a rich purple, then to crimson, and from crimson to an orange tint so deep as to be almost scarlet, beneath which the horizon loomed out black as ink, the intervening space of water lightening, as it swept toward us, until at the distance of a couple of miles it became a livid bluish-white. This marked the western edge of the shoal, and sufficiently accounted for the smoothing of the deep-water in which we were sailing.

As the orange light spread north and south from the point at which it had originated, at the same time reaching upward from the horizon, the bank blink began to fade, or rather to become merged in and overpowered by it; and the shapes of the heavy, lowering clouds that overhung us began to reveal themselves, their lower edges here and there suddenly flushing into hues of the richest yet most delicate rose that rapidly strengthened first into scarlet and then to burning gold as the rays of the yet unrisen sun smote upon them. Presently, in the midst of the rich orange light that was now flashing up on the eastern and north-eastern horizon, there emerged a shape of indigo, practically flat-topped, but with two small protuberances, one at each end, which, by a stretch of the imagination, might be termed hills, rising to a height of perhaps sixty or seventy feet. This was the island of West Caycos, the most westerly of the cays on the bank, and ten minutes later we were under its lee and within less than a cable’s length from the beach.

But what a change had taken place in the aspect of sea and sky during those ten minutes! As we stood, spellbound, watching the gorgeous changes of colour that were taking place along the eastern horizon, a broad ray of white light, the edges slightly tinged with violet, suddenly shot vertically aloft from the horizon, piercing the cloud-masses as though with the thrust of a spear; and as though there had been magic in the touch those cloud-masses at once began to break up and melt away, assuming, ere they vanished, every conceivable tint of the rainbow, from the deepest and richest hue of purple, through crimson and scarlet, to purest molten gold. And while these wonderful changes of colour were taking place, shaft after shaft of living, quivering light flashed into the sky, radiating like the spokes of a wheel against the warm primrose tints of the horizon—merging by imperceptible degrees into the pure, delicate azure of the sky revealed by the breaking up and dissolution of the clouds—to be followed, a few seconds later, by the appearance above the horizon of a great rim of blazing, palpitating golden fire, the level rays from which shot along the tumbling surface of the ocean, splashing it with a million scintillating points of dazzling light, as the crests of the tiny wavelets curled over and broke under the whipping of the freshening breeze. Then, while we still stood watching, a gauzy veil of rain—“the pride of the morning”—swept down upon us, blotting out the glories of the sunrise for a brief minute or two, then driving away to leeward, leaving our sails and deck dark with wet, and revealing the sun, now fully risen, and the sky clear and pure to windward.

With the freshening of the breeze we rapidly brought West Caycos first abeam and then on our weather quarter, while the high land of Providenciales grew upon the weather-bow. Here we were very nearly getting into an exceedingly awkward scrape, for while I went below to prepare for my morning bath under the head-pump, after witnessing the magnificent sunrise that I have endeavoured to describe, the wind suddenly fell light and died away; and then, while I was dressing after my bath, the sea-breeze suddenly sprang up, blowing half a gale; and there were we, not three miles from the land, with as dangerous a stretch of lee-shore as is to be found in all this region abeam of us. Fortunately the schooner’s extraordinary weatherliness stood us in good stead, and enabled us to claw off, but for which we should probably have left her bones, if not our own, there. Our mid-afternoon observations showed us to be in latitude 22 degrees 21 minutes North, and longitude 71 degrees 57 minutes West, which position I considered far enough out for our purpose; we therefore hove about and, under short canvas, proceeded to work our way slowly to the southward and eastward, on the lookout for anything that might chance to come our way.

For several days after this nothing of moment occurred. Finally we found ourselves some two hundred miles to the northward and eastward of the Mona Passage, and I was debating within myself whether to bear up and go back over the ground which I had just traversed, or to continue on and have a look at Porto Rico. But while I was thinking over the question, the lookout in the fore crosstrees reported a sail to windward, quickly succeeded by several others, whereupon we made sail and shaped a course that would enable us to get a somewhat clearer view of them, and, if necessary, to intercept them.

The lookout aloft soon reported that the leading ship was under short canvas, while those which immediately followed her were covered to their trucks, and showing studdingsails as well, from which piece of information it was not difficult for me to guess that the strangers to windward consisted of a convoy of merchantmen, with its escort of men-o’-war. This conjecture of mine soon proved to be correct, for within half-an-hour of their first appearance the leading ships were in sight from the deck, and we made out the biggest of them to be a 74-gun ship, the others in sight obviously being merchantmen. As we closed, with ensign and pennant hoisted, the commodore signalled me to come alongside and send a boat aboard, which I did, going in the boat myself to see what news I could pick up. I thus learned that the ship I had boarded was theGoliath, the captain of which was the commodore of the squadron of convoying ships, consisting of—in addition to theGoliath—the frigatesTourmalineandSpartiate, and the gun-brigsVulcan, Wolverine, Spitfire, andTortoise; the convoy consisting of three hundred and eighty-seven sail of all sorts, bound to the various West Indian ports. I informed the commodore of the nature of the duty upon which I had been sent out by the Admiral on the station, and inquired whether any suspicious craft had been sighted during the passage; to which he grimly replied in the affirmative, but added that they had all been accounted for, and would be found, with prize-crews aboard them, in the main body of the fleet. I stayed on board the seventy-four for a couple of hours, gathering what news the inmates of the ward-room could give me; during which theWasp, under boom-foresail and fore-staysail only, easily kept company with the ponderous two-decker, looking in comparison with her “no bigger as my thumb,” as the negroes would say. She excited a great deal of curiosity, on account of her very peculiar model, and likewise a very considerable amount of admiration as she swept along lightly and buoyantly as a seagull over the long undulations of the heavy swell that was running. It was the first time that I had ever beheld her under sail, from outside her own bulwarks, and although, looked down upon from the lofty poop of theGoliath, she seemed to be the merest cockle-shell, small enough to be hoisted inboard and stowed upon the two-decker’s main hatch, there was still a look of staunchness about her that, coupled with the beauty of her form and the rakish sauciness of her entire appearance, made me feel very proud of the fact that I commanded her, as well as very anxious for an opportunity to show of what she and her crew were capable.

Having extracted all the information I could obtain—which, after all, was not very much—I made my adieux, descended the side, stepped into my boat, and returned to the schooner. Upon rejoining her, we made sail and hauled to the wind, in the hope of finding some picarooning craft hanging on to the skirts of the convoy; but although we hovered in the wake of the latter until the very last of them had disappeared beneath the southern horizon, our hopes were vain; and, finally, I decided to bear up for the Navidad, or Ship Bank, proceed through the Sea of Hayti as far as the entrance of the Windward Channel, and then, if still unsuccessful in my search for traces of the pirate, to work my way back to the Atlantic by the Crooked Island Passage, exploring some of the cays in Austral Bay on the way, they seeming to me to afford considerable facilities for the establishment of a pirate depot.

Chapter Twelve.What the Gunner saw.Two mornings later—theWaspbeing at the time off Ysabelica Point, which is the most northerly point of the island of Hayti—I was awakened by young Dundas, one of the two midshipmen whom I had on board. He entered my cabin, laid his hand lightly on my shoulder, and, as I started up at his touch, said:“I beg your pardon, Mr Delamere, for entering your cabin, but I knocked twice and you did not seem to hear me. The gunner is sorry to have you disturbed, sir, but he would be very much obliged if you would come on deck for a minute or two.”“Very well,” said I; “I will be up in a brace of shakes. Just turn up the lamp, if you please, youngster, and let us have a little more light on the subject. Ah! that’s better, thanks. Kindly hand me those unmentionables. I say, Mr Dundas, there doesn’t seem to be very much wind. What’s the weather like?”“Stark calm, sir; smooth water, and as dark as the inside of a cow,” answered the lad.“Does the weather look threatening, then; or what does—? But never mind; those shoes, if you please. Thanks. That will do. Now I am ready. Away you go, youngster.”Preceded by the lad, I passed into the fore-cabin and thence up on deck, where, as Dundas had picturesquely intimated, the darkness was profound and the air breathless, save for the small draughts created by the flapping of the great mainsail to the gentle movements of the schooner upon the low undulations of the swell.As I stepped out on deck I heard Henderson’s voice close at my elbow, although the man himself was invisible.“Sorry to have been obliged to disturb you, Mr Delamere,” he said, “but something’s happened that I thought you ought to know about.”“Yes?” I remarked interrogatively. “Well, what was it, Henderson?”“Well, it’s like this here, sir,” he replied. “We’ve been becalmed this last hour or more, durin’ which the schooner have been boxin’ the compass, while it’s been that close and muggy that one don’t seem to have been able to get air enough to breathe. And the closeness made me feel so drowsy that, to prevent myself from droppin’ off to sleep, I’ve been obliged to keep on my feet, pacing fore and aft atween the main cabin skylight and the main riggin’. The watch have coiled theirselves away somewheres, and I don’t doubt but what they’re snatchin’ a cat-nap—and I haven’t troubled to disturb ’em, sir, for the lookout on the fo’c’s’le is keepin’ his eyes skinned.“Well, a few minutes ago—it may be five, or it may be ten—I’d just swung round to walk aft from the main riggin’ when, as my eyes travelled away out here over the port quarter, I got the notion into my head that there was somethin’ goin’ on down there, for it seemed to me that I’d got a glimpse—out of the corner of my eye, as it might be—of a small sparkin’, like—like—well, hang me if I know what it was like, unless it might be twenty or thirty pistols or muskets all being fired close after one another.”“Ah!” I ejaculated. “And did you hear any sound, Henderson—anything like that of distant firing, for instance?”“No, Mr Delamere; not a sound, sir,” answered the gunner. “But then,” he continued, “that ain’t very surprisin’ when you comes to think of it, for just listen to what’s goin’ on aboard here—the old hooker ain’t so very noisy, I’ll allow; still, what with the rustlin’ of the canvas overhead, the patter of the reef-points, the creakin’ of the jaws o’ the mainboom, the clank o’ the wheel-chains, and the wash and gurgle of the water alongside with the roll of her, there’s not much chance of pickin’ up sounds comin’ from a distance, is there, sir?”“No, that is true, there is not,” I admitted. “Did you see, or hear, anything else, Henderson?” I asked.“No, sir; never another thing,” answered the gunner. “And I’d like ye to understand, Mr Delamere, that I wouldn’t care actually to stand up in court and swear that I really saw what I told ye; for, as I explained, I only caught the thing out o’ the tail-end of my eye, as it might be, and then ’twas gone again, and I saw nothin’ more. But the impression that I really had seen something was so strong that I felt it was my duty to report it.”“Of course; you did perfectly right,” I agreed; “particularly in view of the task that has been given us to do. Did the lookout see anything of this appearance of flashes?”“No, sir,” answered Henderson; “he didn’t. Nat’rally he wouldn’t, for he was keepin’ a lookout ahead and on either bow, while this here flashin’ showed—if it really did show at all, and wasn’t my imagination—out there over the port quarter.”“Quite so,” I concurred. “Under those circumstances he would not be in the least likely to see the appearance. Did it occur to you to take the bearing of the spot where you thought you saw those flashes?”“Yes, sir, it did,” answered Henderson. “I stood, just for a second or two, to see if there was any more comin’: and then, not seein’ anything, I went straight to the binnacle and took the bearin’, which I found to be nor’-west and by west, half west.”With one consent we both walked aft to the binnacle and peered into it. The schooner had swung several points while the gunner had been spinning his somewhat long-winded yarn, for the bearing which he gave now lay about a point over the starboard quarter. I stared into the blackness in that direction, but could see nothing. Then I got the night glass and, setting it to my focus, raised it to my eye, pointing it out over the starboard quarter and sweeping it slowly and carefully to right and left. For a minute or two I saw nothing; then, as I swept the tube along what I judged to be the line of the horizon, a tiny smudge of radiance—so dim as to be scarcely more than a suggestion—seemed to float athwart the lenses and was gone again. There is probably nothing in ordinary life much more difficult than to pick up and retain in the lenses of a telescope, levelled by hand, a spark of light so minute and faint as to be invisible to the unaided eye in the midst of the surrounding darkness, and the difficulty is enhanced when the attempt is made from the deck of a small vessel oscillating though ever so gently on the ridges of a long, low-running swell, and for the life of me I could not again find the feeble glimmer that had seemed to swim athwart the instrument, try as I would.“It is no good, Henderson,” I said at last, abandoning the attempt in despair, and handing the telescope over to him. “I am almost certain that for a single instant I caught a faint blur of light away out there; but I cannot find it now. Take the glass, and see if you can meet with any better success. But verify your bearing before you do so.”The schooner had swung a point or two further round by this time, and the bearing now lay broad over the starboard beam, in which direction Henderson pointed his glass. Meanwhile Dundas, the midshipman who had called me, had slipped down below and brought his own telescope on deck, and was working away with it, but neither he nor the gunner met with any luck; and I was about to try my hand again when a slight lessening of the intensity of the darkness away down in the eastern quarter indicated the approach of dawn. In those low latitudes the transition from night to day, andvice versa, is extraordinarily rapid, occupying but a few minutes; and, even as we stood watching, the pallor strengthened and spread to right and left and upward, suggesting the stealthy but rapid withdrawal of an infinite number of dark gauze curtains from the face of the firmament, until presently the eastern quadrant of the horizon became visible, the pallid sea showing like a surface of molten lead, sluggishly undulating like the coils of a sleeping snake, while overhead stretched an unbroken pall of dark grey cloud that seemed to promise a drenching downpour of rain before long.The light from the east stole upward among the clouds and westward along the surface of the sea with amazing rapidity, yet to our impatience its progress seemed exasperatingly slow, for away down in the west the darkness was still profound. And yet, even as we gazed, that darkness seemed to become diluted, as it were, with the advancing light that we could almost see sliding along the surface of the water, until suddenly, as though emerging from an invisible mist, a ghostly object appeared, grey and elusive, against the background of darkness, and with one voice we all three shouted:“There she is?”Yes, there she was—a large ship, about seven miles away, lying becalmed, like ourselves, with all plain sail set, to her royals and flying-jib. For perhaps half a minute after our first sight of her the light was too weak and uncertain to enable us to discern details; but as we kept our telescopes persistently bearing upon her, first one distinctive feature and then another became revealed.“She’s a full-rigged ship, lying broadside-on to us, Mr Delamere,” announced young Dundas.“So I perceive,” I returned somewhat dryly. “And I notice, also, that she has swung with her head to the southward.”“She’s a big lump of a craft, not very far short of 900 tons, I should say,” commented Henderson, with his eye still glued to the eye-piece of the schooner’s glass. “And,” he continued, after a slight pause, “I reckon she’s a foreigner; that high poop and them deep-curvin’ headboards never took shape in a British shipyard, I’m prepared to swear to that. Looks to me like a Dutchman. What do you think, Mr Delamere?”“I agree with you that she is undoubtedly a foreigner,” answered I; “but I don’t think she is Dutch—there is too much gilding and gingerbread-work about her quarters for that. There,”—as the sun broke through the clouds and showed his upper rim above the horizon, flashing a long, level beam along the surface of the water, striking the stranger and causing the stern of her to blaze into a sudden flame of glittering radiance—“do you see that, Henderson? Her quarter is a solid mass of painted and gilded carving. The Dutchman is too economical, too fond of the dollars to lavish so much gold-leaf as that on the adornment of his ship; he prefers to put the money into extra bolts and fastenings. No; that fellow is a Spaniard, or I’m greatly mistaken!”“Spaniard, or Dutch, or French, it don’t make much difference to us, Mr Delamere,” answered the gunner, as he replaced the telescope in the beckets; “she’ll give us a nice little bit o’ prize-money as soon as the breeze comes and enables us to run down alongside her.”“Ay, that she will—if she doesn’t happen to be a man-o’-war—and I don’t believe she is,” I answered, as I again levelled my glass at her. “No,” I continued, “she is no man-o’-war, although I see she shows a set of teeth; but there are not many of them, they are all small pieces, and half of them may be quakers, for what we can tell to the contrary. She is a Spanish West Indiaman, I believe, bound, no doubt, to Cartagena, or some other port on the Main; and she has probably come in through the Handkerchief, or Turks Islands Passage. Well, there does not seem to be much chance of the wind coming just yet, Henderson, so you had better get your head-pump rigged and muster your scrubbers; meanwhile I will have my bath, as usual, and then get dressed, so as to be all ready by the time that the breeze comes.”When eight o’clock and breakfast-time arrived there was no perceptible change in the aspect of the weather, which remained stark calm; while the heavy pall of cloud that had shrouded the night sky had thinned away to a kind of dense haze in the midst of which the sun throbbed—a great shapeless splotch of misty light that, notwithstanding its partial veiling, still contrived to impart a scorching quality to the breathless atmosphere.As I ascended to the deck after breakfast I found Pearce, the boatswain, whose watch it now was, apparently waiting for my reappearance. He held the schooner’s glass in his hand, and had evidently spent practically the whole time since eight bells in watching the stranger.“I’ve been thinkin’, Mr Delamere,” he began, “how would it be to get the boats out and go after that chap? We could do it quite comfortable—take possession of her, leave a prize-crew aboard her, and get back to the schooner again before dinner.”“No doubt,” I agreed. “But why should we trouble to get the boats into the water and fatigue the men by a long pull in this sweltering heat? That ship can’t get away from us without wind; and if I am any judge of the looks of a vessel we shall walk up to her as if she were at anchor as soon as the breeze comes. She is a good seven miles away, a pull of an hour and a half at the least in this weather, and at the end of it the men would be too tired to face resistance effectively, if it were offered—as it very possibly might be. No, I really do not see any necessity to dispatch the boats, just yet at least; do you?”“Well, ’pon my word, Mr Delamere, I don’t know,” answered Pearce, scratching his head with a puzzled air. “The way you puts it there don’t seem to be no sense at all in doin’ of it. And yet, I don’t know, sir. The fact is, I’m a bit puzzled about that there ship. Here are we, regularly boxin’ the compass, our jibboom pointin’ first this way, then that, and then t’other, while that ship haven’t veered nothin’ to speak of all the time that I’ve been on deck; she’ve pointed steady to the south’ard ever since I first set eyes on her, and it seems to me that she’ve altered her bearin’s a bit. I suppose it ain’t likely that she’ve got her boats into the water, towin’ on t’other side of her, have she?”“Good gracious, man, no, surely not!” I ejaculated. “What in the world should they do such a mad thing as that for? What effect would two, or even three, boats have on a big heavy ship like that? They could never hope to tow her below the horizon and out of sight of us before the wind comes; and, if not, why should they tire themselves to death by making such an attempt? I admit that it is rather strange that her head should point so steadily in one direction while we are boxing the compass; but she probably draws twice as much water as we do, and that may have something to do with it.”I took the telescope from Pearce’s hands and again levelled it at the stranger. She was still lying broadside-on to us, showing us her port side, and her yards were braced sharp up on the starboard tack, as though—assuming her to have come in through one of the passages—she had had a wind from the westward, while the breeze which had brought us where we were had been from the eastward. The peculiarity of this now struck me for the first time, but it carried no particular significance to my mind beyond the suggestion that possibly she might, after all, be homeward instead of outward bound. But as I stood scanning her through the lenses it gradually dawned upon me that her people seemed to be extraordinarily busy, for I could detect indications that quite a large number of men were actively moving about her decks; and presently, to my astonishment, I noticed that she had a tackle at her mainyard-arm; and while I was still wondering what this might be for, I saw a large case rise slowly above the level of her bulwark and then vanish again, apparently over her rail.Then, in a second, illumination came to me and I understood everything. There was a craft of some sort alongside her, completely hidden from our view by her hull and canvas, braced as sharp up as possible, and undoubtedly there were boats in the water on the other side of her, employed to keep her broadside-on to us and thus keep the other craft hidden from us; moreover, certain portions of her cargo were being hoisted out and transferred to the hidden vessel. The inference was obvious: the hidden craft was a pirate which had somehow managed to sneak up alongside and surprise her in the pitchy darkness of the early hours of the morning—Henderson had actually caught a glimpse of the very act of capture—and now she was being plundered by the audacious scoundrels under our very eyes.I laid down the glass and looked sharply round the horizon. The atmosphere was distinctly thickening, to such an extent, indeed, that the sun was now almost blotted out, and there was a greasy look about the sky that seemed to portend bad weather. The sea was still glass-smooth, not the faintest suggestion of a catspaw to be seen in any direction; but there was a certain gloomy, lowering appearance over the western horizon that appeared to promise a breeze before long. It might be hours, however, before it came, and we could not wait for it; for robbery, and very possibly violence, ay, even cold-blooded murder, was being perpetrated at that moment, and speedy intervention was imperative. I felt horribly vexed that we should all have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked so completely; for although the device was undoubtedly quite clever, the conviction would insist upon forcing itself upon me that I had attached altogether too little importance to the gunner’s story of those mysterious flashes, seen “out of the corner of his eye.” I told myself that that story ought to have aroused my suspicions, ought to have conveyed a distinct suggestion to my mind; and that, if it had, we should have detected the ruse almost with the first appearance of daylight. This, however, was not the moment for reproaches, either of myself or others, it was the moment for action; and I turned sharply upon the boatswain.“Mr Pearce,” I said, “on the starboard side of that ship there is another craft, completely hidden from us by the hull and canvas of the stranger, and cargo is being hoisted out of the one and transferred to the other. That means that an act of piracy is being perpetrated; and we have been commissioned for the express purpose of suppressing piracy. It is as likely as not that the hidden craft is the identical vessel that we have been sent out to capture, but in any case our duty is clear; we must get up within striking distance and interfere without a moment’s loss of time. Now, the question in my mind is this: Should we man and arm boats, and send them away; or should we rig out our sweeps and attempt to sweep the schooner up to the scene of action? Under ordinary circumstances I should be for dispatching the boats; but I don’t quite know what to make of the weather. There is no sign of a breeze in any direction at the present moment, but that lowering appearance away to the westward may mean wind; and if it does, it may come down very strong. Should it do so, it would bother the boats, and enable the pirates to slip away; on the other hand, the wind may not come away for several hours yet. This is one of those occasions when experience is valuable, and I shall be glad to have your opinion as to which plan is the better.”Pearce, meanwhile, had been peering through the glass again; but when I finished speaking he laid it down and turned to me.“’Pon my word, Mr Delamere, it’s very difficult to say,” he answered. “While you’ve been talkin’ I’ve been lookin’ at that ship away yonder, and I believe, sir, as you’re right about there bein’ another craft alongside of her, although they’ve so managed things that they might ha’ stayed all day as they are without our bein’ any the wiser, if we hadn’t kept on watchin’ ’em. Yes; it’s a hact of piracy, right enough, I haven’t a doubt; and, as you says—what’s the best thing to be done?”He paused and gazed earnestly toward the increasing appearance of thickness and greasiness in the western quarter, carefully studying its aspect for a full minute or more; then he turned to me again.“I don’t like the look of it at all, Mr Delamere,” he said. “There’s bad weather brewin’ yonder—I’m sure of it—but how long it’ll be before it comes no man can say; it may be hours, or it may be on us within the next half-hour or so. What does the barometer say?”We both stepped to the open skylight and peered down through it at the barometer, which hung in gimbals from the fore transom. The mercury was falling rather rapidly.“Yes,” Pearce continued, “I don’t like the look of it, sir, and I shouldn’t like to take the responsibility of advisin’ of you to send the boats away. For, ye see, Mr—”“Yes,” I interrupted, cutting ruthlessly in upon the man’s speech, “I see quite clearly, boatswain, that you and I are of one mind upon that point, therefore there is no need to discuss it further, and we will at once proceed to action. Call all hands if you please, Mr Pearce.”The next moment the shrill chirruping of Pearce’s pipe and his gruff bellow of “All hands ahoy!” resounded throughout the little vessel, and our decks at once became a scene of animation. The galley fire was extinguished, although the cook was by this time busy upon the preparation of the men’s dinner; screens were fastened up round the hatchways, the magazine was opened, powder and shot were passed up on deck, and the guns were cast loose and loaded, the men dancing about the decks with the glee and activity of schoolboys preparing for a day’s amusement. Then, as soon as we were all ready for action, the heavy sweeps were rigged out, four men to each sweep, and the schooner’s bows were pointed straight for the stranger. To overcome the inertia of the little vessel, and get way upon her, was laborious work, and the men, stripped to their waists, were soon streaming with perspiration; but after the first five minutes’ toil, during which we worked up a speed of about three knots, it proved a comparatively easy matter to keep her going.It soon became evident that a keen watch upon our movements was being maintained by the pirates; for no sooner had it been made apparent that we intended to close with the strangers than all attempts at further concealment were abandoned, the ship’s courses were clewed up, her yards were squared; to facilitate the hoisting out of cargo, additional tackles were got aloft, and all the signs of greatly increased activity on board her at once became manifest. It now also became apparent that some means had been resorted to for the purpose of keeping her broadside presented to us and her hull interposed between us and the pirate vessel, and that these means had now been abandoned as of no further avail; for within the next ten minutes she swung stem-on to us, and we saw that there was indeed another craft alongside her—a slashing big topsail schooner, immensely beamy, with all her canvas clewed up and furled, and her decks cumbered with bales and packages of all sizes and descriptions, which were being hoisted out of the big ship’s hold and lowered over the side with feverish activity. As the two craft swung round, revealing the presence of the second vessel, our lads gave a cheer of delight and exultation, and applied themselves with such fierce energy to the toil of working the heavy sweeps that they churned the glassy surface of the ocean into a long double row of miniature whirlpools, that went swirling and frothing away from the blades of the sweeps into the wake of the schooner, to the distance of a full quarter of a mile.Fortunately, however, they were not compelled to toil very long at this exhausting labour; for when we had progressed about a mile a few catspaws came stealing along the surface of the water from the westward, while a dark line gradually extended along the western horizon and advanced steadily in our direction, the catspaws meanwhile multiplying and spreading until, within a quarter of an hour of their first appearance, the sails of the strange ship were wrinkling and flapping to quite a pleasant little breeze. The moment that this happened the pirate schooner cast off and made sail with the rapidity and precision of a man-o’-war, thus demonstrating that she was manned by an exceptionally strong and efficient crew. As soon as she was clear of the ship she was brought to the wind, under an enormous spread of exquisitely cut canvas, and away she went, close-hauled on the port tack, heading to the northward at a pace which made us gape with astonishment; while the ship, with squared yards, gathered stern-way and first fell broadside-on to us, then gradually paid off until she was before the wind, when down she came driving toward us, yawing so broadly to port and starboard that it was easy to see she had nobody at her helm, which seemed to point pretty clearly toward the presumption of tragedy. A quarter of an hour later the catspaws were ruffling the surface of the water here and there all round us, and stirring our canvas at rapidly decreasing intervals, with the true breeze coming fast and close behind them; we, therefore, laid in our sweeps, put the helm up, trimmed our sheets on the port tack, took a long pull and a strong pull upon the halliards all round, and paid off just in time to receive the first of the true breeze into the hollows of our canvas, when, heeling over to the extent of a strake or so, away we too went, with a merry buzzing and seething of water under our bows and along our bends.

Two mornings later—theWaspbeing at the time off Ysabelica Point, which is the most northerly point of the island of Hayti—I was awakened by young Dundas, one of the two midshipmen whom I had on board. He entered my cabin, laid his hand lightly on my shoulder, and, as I started up at his touch, said:

“I beg your pardon, Mr Delamere, for entering your cabin, but I knocked twice and you did not seem to hear me. The gunner is sorry to have you disturbed, sir, but he would be very much obliged if you would come on deck for a minute or two.”

“Very well,” said I; “I will be up in a brace of shakes. Just turn up the lamp, if you please, youngster, and let us have a little more light on the subject. Ah! that’s better, thanks. Kindly hand me those unmentionables. I say, Mr Dundas, there doesn’t seem to be very much wind. What’s the weather like?”

“Stark calm, sir; smooth water, and as dark as the inside of a cow,” answered the lad.

“Does the weather look threatening, then; or what does—? But never mind; those shoes, if you please. Thanks. That will do. Now I am ready. Away you go, youngster.”

Preceded by the lad, I passed into the fore-cabin and thence up on deck, where, as Dundas had picturesquely intimated, the darkness was profound and the air breathless, save for the small draughts created by the flapping of the great mainsail to the gentle movements of the schooner upon the low undulations of the swell.

As I stepped out on deck I heard Henderson’s voice close at my elbow, although the man himself was invisible.

“Sorry to have been obliged to disturb you, Mr Delamere,” he said, “but something’s happened that I thought you ought to know about.”

“Yes?” I remarked interrogatively. “Well, what was it, Henderson?”

“Well, it’s like this here, sir,” he replied. “We’ve been becalmed this last hour or more, durin’ which the schooner have been boxin’ the compass, while it’s been that close and muggy that one don’t seem to have been able to get air enough to breathe. And the closeness made me feel so drowsy that, to prevent myself from droppin’ off to sleep, I’ve been obliged to keep on my feet, pacing fore and aft atween the main cabin skylight and the main riggin’. The watch have coiled theirselves away somewheres, and I don’t doubt but what they’re snatchin’ a cat-nap—and I haven’t troubled to disturb ’em, sir, for the lookout on the fo’c’s’le is keepin’ his eyes skinned.

“Well, a few minutes ago—it may be five, or it may be ten—I’d just swung round to walk aft from the main riggin’ when, as my eyes travelled away out here over the port quarter, I got the notion into my head that there was somethin’ goin’ on down there, for it seemed to me that I’d got a glimpse—out of the corner of my eye, as it might be—of a small sparkin’, like—like—well, hang me if I know what it was like, unless it might be twenty or thirty pistols or muskets all being fired close after one another.”

“Ah!” I ejaculated. “And did you hear any sound, Henderson—anything like that of distant firing, for instance?”

“No, Mr Delamere; not a sound, sir,” answered the gunner. “But then,” he continued, “that ain’t very surprisin’ when you comes to think of it, for just listen to what’s goin’ on aboard here—the old hooker ain’t so very noisy, I’ll allow; still, what with the rustlin’ of the canvas overhead, the patter of the reef-points, the creakin’ of the jaws o’ the mainboom, the clank o’ the wheel-chains, and the wash and gurgle of the water alongside with the roll of her, there’s not much chance of pickin’ up sounds comin’ from a distance, is there, sir?”

“No, that is true, there is not,” I admitted. “Did you see, or hear, anything else, Henderson?” I asked.

“No, sir; never another thing,” answered the gunner. “And I’d like ye to understand, Mr Delamere, that I wouldn’t care actually to stand up in court and swear that I really saw what I told ye; for, as I explained, I only caught the thing out o’ the tail-end of my eye, as it might be, and then ’twas gone again, and I saw nothin’ more. But the impression that I really had seen something was so strong that I felt it was my duty to report it.”

“Of course; you did perfectly right,” I agreed; “particularly in view of the task that has been given us to do. Did the lookout see anything of this appearance of flashes?”

“No, sir,” answered Henderson; “he didn’t. Nat’rally he wouldn’t, for he was keepin’ a lookout ahead and on either bow, while this here flashin’ showed—if it really did show at all, and wasn’t my imagination—out there over the port quarter.”

“Quite so,” I concurred. “Under those circumstances he would not be in the least likely to see the appearance. Did it occur to you to take the bearing of the spot where you thought you saw those flashes?”

“Yes, sir, it did,” answered Henderson. “I stood, just for a second or two, to see if there was any more comin’: and then, not seein’ anything, I went straight to the binnacle and took the bearin’, which I found to be nor’-west and by west, half west.”

With one consent we both walked aft to the binnacle and peered into it. The schooner had swung several points while the gunner had been spinning his somewhat long-winded yarn, for the bearing which he gave now lay about a point over the starboard quarter. I stared into the blackness in that direction, but could see nothing. Then I got the night glass and, setting it to my focus, raised it to my eye, pointing it out over the starboard quarter and sweeping it slowly and carefully to right and left. For a minute or two I saw nothing; then, as I swept the tube along what I judged to be the line of the horizon, a tiny smudge of radiance—so dim as to be scarcely more than a suggestion—seemed to float athwart the lenses and was gone again. There is probably nothing in ordinary life much more difficult than to pick up and retain in the lenses of a telescope, levelled by hand, a spark of light so minute and faint as to be invisible to the unaided eye in the midst of the surrounding darkness, and the difficulty is enhanced when the attempt is made from the deck of a small vessel oscillating though ever so gently on the ridges of a long, low-running swell, and for the life of me I could not again find the feeble glimmer that had seemed to swim athwart the instrument, try as I would.

“It is no good, Henderson,” I said at last, abandoning the attempt in despair, and handing the telescope over to him. “I am almost certain that for a single instant I caught a faint blur of light away out there; but I cannot find it now. Take the glass, and see if you can meet with any better success. But verify your bearing before you do so.”

The schooner had swung a point or two further round by this time, and the bearing now lay broad over the starboard beam, in which direction Henderson pointed his glass. Meanwhile Dundas, the midshipman who had called me, had slipped down below and brought his own telescope on deck, and was working away with it, but neither he nor the gunner met with any luck; and I was about to try my hand again when a slight lessening of the intensity of the darkness away down in the eastern quarter indicated the approach of dawn. In those low latitudes the transition from night to day, andvice versa, is extraordinarily rapid, occupying but a few minutes; and, even as we stood watching, the pallor strengthened and spread to right and left and upward, suggesting the stealthy but rapid withdrawal of an infinite number of dark gauze curtains from the face of the firmament, until presently the eastern quadrant of the horizon became visible, the pallid sea showing like a surface of molten lead, sluggishly undulating like the coils of a sleeping snake, while overhead stretched an unbroken pall of dark grey cloud that seemed to promise a drenching downpour of rain before long.

The light from the east stole upward among the clouds and westward along the surface of the sea with amazing rapidity, yet to our impatience its progress seemed exasperatingly slow, for away down in the west the darkness was still profound. And yet, even as we gazed, that darkness seemed to become diluted, as it were, with the advancing light that we could almost see sliding along the surface of the water, until suddenly, as though emerging from an invisible mist, a ghostly object appeared, grey and elusive, against the background of darkness, and with one voice we all three shouted:

“There she is?”

Yes, there she was—a large ship, about seven miles away, lying becalmed, like ourselves, with all plain sail set, to her royals and flying-jib. For perhaps half a minute after our first sight of her the light was too weak and uncertain to enable us to discern details; but as we kept our telescopes persistently bearing upon her, first one distinctive feature and then another became revealed.

“She’s a full-rigged ship, lying broadside-on to us, Mr Delamere,” announced young Dundas.

“So I perceive,” I returned somewhat dryly. “And I notice, also, that she has swung with her head to the southward.”

“She’s a big lump of a craft, not very far short of 900 tons, I should say,” commented Henderson, with his eye still glued to the eye-piece of the schooner’s glass. “And,” he continued, after a slight pause, “I reckon she’s a foreigner; that high poop and them deep-curvin’ headboards never took shape in a British shipyard, I’m prepared to swear to that. Looks to me like a Dutchman. What do you think, Mr Delamere?”

“I agree with you that she is undoubtedly a foreigner,” answered I; “but I don’t think she is Dutch—there is too much gilding and gingerbread-work about her quarters for that. There,”—as the sun broke through the clouds and showed his upper rim above the horizon, flashing a long, level beam along the surface of the water, striking the stranger and causing the stern of her to blaze into a sudden flame of glittering radiance—“do you see that, Henderson? Her quarter is a solid mass of painted and gilded carving. The Dutchman is too economical, too fond of the dollars to lavish so much gold-leaf as that on the adornment of his ship; he prefers to put the money into extra bolts and fastenings. No; that fellow is a Spaniard, or I’m greatly mistaken!”

“Spaniard, or Dutch, or French, it don’t make much difference to us, Mr Delamere,” answered the gunner, as he replaced the telescope in the beckets; “she’ll give us a nice little bit o’ prize-money as soon as the breeze comes and enables us to run down alongside her.”

“Ay, that she will—if she doesn’t happen to be a man-o’-war—and I don’t believe she is,” I answered, as I again levelled my glass at her. “No,” I continued, “she is no man-o’-war, although I see she shows a set of teeth; but there are not many of them, they are all small pieces, and half of them may be quakers, for what we can tell to the contrary. She is a Spanish West Indiaman, I believe, bound, no doubt, to Cartagena, or some other port on the Main; and she has probably come in through the Handkerchief, or Turks Islands Passage. Well, there does not seem to be much chance of the wind coming just yet, Henderson, so you had better get your head-pump rigged and muster your scrubbers; meanwhile I will have my bath, as usual, and then get dressed, so as to be all ready by the time that the breeze comes.”

When eight o’clock and breakfast-time arrived there was no perceptible change in the aspect of the weather, which remained stark calm; while the heavy pall of cloud that had shrouded the night sky had thinned away to a kind of dense haze in the midst of which the sun throbbed—a great shapeless splotch of misty light that, notwithstanding its partial veiling, still contrived to impart a scorching quality to the breathless atmosphere.

As I ascended to the deck after breakfast I found Pearce, the boatswain, whose watch it now was, apparently waiting for my reappearance. He held the schooner’s glass in his hand, and had evidently spent practically the whole time since eight bells in watching the stranger.

“I’ve been thinkin’, Mr Delamere,” he began, “how would it be to get the boats out and go after that chap? We could do it quite comfortable—take possession of her, leave a prize-crew aboard her, and get back to the schooner again before dinner.”

“No doubt,” I agreed. “But why should we trouble to get the boats into the water and fatigue the men by a long pull in this sweltering heat? That ship can’t get away from us without wind; and if I am any judge of the looks of a vessel we shall walk up to her as if she were at anchor as soon as the breeze comes. She is a good seven miles away, a pull of an hour and a half at the least in this weather, and at the end of it the men would be too tired to face resistance effectively, if it were offered—as it very possibly might be. No, I really do not see any necessity to dispatch the boats, just yet at least; do you?”

“Well, ’pon my word, Mr Delamere, I don’t know,” answered Pearce, scratching his head with a puzzled air. “The way you puts it there don’t seem to be no sense at all in doin’ of it. And yet, I don’t know, sir. The fact is, I’m a bit puzzled about that there ship. Here are we, regularly boxin’ the compass, our jibboom pointin’ first this way, then that, and then t’other, while that ship haven’t veered nothin’ to speak of all the time that I’ve been on deck; she’ve pointed steady to the south’ard ever since I first set eyes on her, and it seems to me that she’ve altered her bearin’s a bit. I suppose it ain’t likely that she’ve got her boats into the water, towin’ on t’other side of her, have she?”

“Good gracious, man, no, surely not!” I ejaculated. “What in the world should they do such a mad thing as that for? What effect would two, or even three, boats have on a big heavy ship like that? They could never hope to tow her below the horizon and out of sight of us before the wind comes; and, if not, why should they tire themselves to death by making such an attempt? I admit that it is rather strange that her head should point so steadily in one direction while we are boxing the compass; but she probably draws twice as much water as we do, and that may have something to do with it.”

I took the telescope from Pearce’s hands and again levelled it at the stranger. She was still lying broadside-on to us, showing us her port side, and her yards were braced sharp up on the starboard tack, as though—assuming her to have come in through one of the passages—she had had a wind from the westward, while the breeze which had brought us where we were had been from the eastward. The peculiarity of this now struck me for the first time, but it carried no particular significance to my mind beyond the suggestion that possibly she might, after all, be homeward instead of outward bound. But as I stood scanning her through the lenses it gradually dawned upon me that her people seemed to be extraordinarily busy, for I could detect indications that quite a large number of men were actively moving about her decks; and presently, to my astonishment, I noticed that she had a tackle at her mainyard-arm; and while I was still wondering what this might be for, I saw a large case rise slowly above the level of her bulwark and then vanish again, apparently over her rail.

Then, in a second, illumination came to me and I understood everything. There was a craft of some sort alongside her, completely hidden from our view by her hull and canvas, braced as sharp up as possible, and undoubtedly there were boats in the water on the other side of her, employed to keep her broadside-on to us and thus keep the other craft hidden from us; moreover, certain portions of her cargo were being hoisted out and transferred to the hidden vessel. The inference was obvious: the hidden craft was a pirate which had somehow managed to sneak up alongside and surprise her in the pitchy darkness of the early hours of the morning—Henderson had actually caught a glimpse of the very act of capture—and now she was being plundered by the audacious scoundrels under our very eyes.

I laid down the glass and looked sharply round the horizon. The atmosphere was distinctly thickening, to such an extent, indeed, that the sun was now almost blotted out, and there was a greasy look about the sky that seemed to portend bad weather. The sea was still glass-smooth, not the faintest suggestion of a catspaw to be seen in any direction; but there was a certain gloomy, lowering appearance over the western horizon that appeared to promise a breeze before long. It might be hours, however, before it came, and we could not wait for it; for robbery, and very possibly violence, ay, even cold-blooded murder, was being perpetrated at that moment, and speedy intervention was imperative. I felt horribly vexed that we should all have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked so completely; for although the device was undoubtedly quite clever, the conviction would insist upon forcing itself upon me that I had attached altogether too little importance to the gunner’s story of those mysterious flashes, seen “out of the corner of his eye.” I told myself that that story ought to have aroused my suspicions, ought to have conveyed a distinct suggestion to my mind; and that, if it had, we should have detected the ruse almost with the first appearance of daylight. This, however, was not the moment for reproaches, either of myself or others, it was the moment for action; and I turned sharply upon the boatswain.

“Mr Pearce,” I said, “on the starboard side of that ship there is another craft, completely hidden from us by the hull and canvas of the stranger, and cargo is being hoisted out of the one and transferred to the other. That means that an act of piracy is being perpetrated; and we have been commissioned for the express purpose of suppressing piracy. It is as likely as not that the hidden craft is the identical vessel that we have been sent out to capture, but in any case our duty is clear; we must get up within striking distance and interfere without a moment’s loss of time. Now, the question in my mind is this: Should we man and arm boats, and send them away; or should we rig out our sweeps and attempt to sweep the schooner up to the scene of action? Under ordinary circumstances I should be for dispatching the boats; but I don’t quite know what to make of the weather. There is no sign of a breeze in any direction at the present moment, but that lowering appearance away to the westward may mean wind; and if it does, it may come down very strong. Should it do so, it would bother the boats, and enable the pirates to slip away; on the other hand, the wind may not come away for several hours yet. This is one of those occasions when experience is valuable, and I shall be glad to have your opinion as to which plan is the better.”

Pearce, meanwhile, had been peering through the glass again; but when I finished speaking he laid it down and turned to me.

“’Pon my word, Mr Delamere, it’s very difficult to say,” he answered. “While you’ve been talkin’ I’ve been lookin’ at that ship away yonder, and I believe, sir, as you’re right about there bein’ another craft alongside of her, although they’ve so managed things that they might ha’ stayed all day as they are without our bein’ any the wiser, if we hadn’t kept on watchin’ ’em. Yes; it’s a hact of piracy, right enough, I haven’t a doubt; and, as you says—what’s the best thing to be done?”

He paused and gazed earnestly toward the increasing appearance of thickness and greasiness in the western quarter, carefully studying its aspect for a full minute or more; then he turned to me again.

“I don’t like the look of it at all, Mr Delamere,” he said. “There’s bad weather brewin’ yonder—I’m sure of it—but how long it’ll be before it comes no man can say; it may be hours, or it may be on us within the next half-hour or so. What does the barometer say?”

We both stepped to the open skylight and peered down through it at the barometer, which hung in gimbals from the fore transom. The mercury was falling rather rapidly.

“Yes,” Pearce continued, “I don’t like the look of it, sir, and I shouldn’t like to take the responsibility of advisin’ of you to send the boats away. For, ye see, Mr—”

“Yes,” I interrupted, cutting ruthlessly in upon the man’s speech, “I see quite clearly, boatswain, that you and I are of one mind upon that point, therefore there is no need to discuss it further, and we will at once proceed to action. Call all hands if you please, Mr Pearce.”

The next moment the shrill chirruping of Pearce’s pipe and his gruff bellow of “All hands ahoy!” resounded throughout the little vessel, and our decks at once became a scene of animation. The galley fire was extinguished, although the cook was by this time busy upon the preparation of the men’s dinner; screens were fastened up round the hatchways, the magazine was opened, powder and shot were passed up on deck, and the guns were cast loose and loaded, the men dancing about the decks with the glee and activity of schoolboys preparing for a day’s amusement. Then, as soon as we were all ready for action, the heavy sweeps were rigged out, four men to each sweep, and the schooner’s bows were pointed straight for the stranger. To overcome the inertia of the little vessel, and get way upon her, was laborious work, and the men, stripped to their waists, were soon streaming with perspiration; but after the first five minutes’ toil, during which we worked up a speed of about three knots, it proved a comparatively easy matter to keep her going.

It soon became evident that a keen watch upon our movements was being maintained by the pirates; for no sooner had it been made apparent that we intended to close with the strangers than all attempts at further concealment were abandoned, the ship’s courses were clewed up, her yards were squared; to facilitate the hoisting out of cargo, additional tackles were got aloft, and all the signs of greatly increased activity on board her at once became manifest. It now also became apparent that some means had been resorted to for the purpose of keeping her broadside presented to us and her hull interposed between us and the pirate vessel, and that these means had now been abandoned as of no further avail; for within the next ten minutes she swung stem-on to us, and we saw that there was indeed another craft alongside her—a slashing big topsail schooner, immensely beamy, with all her canvas clewed up and furled, and her decks cumbered with bales and packages of all sizes and descriptions, which were being hoisted out of the big ship’s hold and lowered over the side with feverish activity. As the two craft swung round, revealing the presence of the second vessel, our lads gave a cheer of delight and exultation, and applied themselves with such fierce energy to the toil of working the heavy sweeps that they churned the glassy surface of the ocean into a long double row of miniature whirlpools, that went swirling and frothing away from the blades of the sweeps into the wake of the schooner, to the distance of a full quarter of a mile.

Fortunately, however, they were not compelled to toil very long at this exhausting labour; for when we had progressed about a mile a few catspaws came stealing along the surface of the water from the westward, while a dark line gradually extended along the western horizon and advanced steadily in our direction, the catspaws meanwhile multiplying and spreading until, within a quarter of an hour of their first appearance, the sails of the strange ship were wrinkling and flapping to quite a pleasant little breeze. The moment that this happened the pirate schooner cast off and made sail with the rapidity and precision of a man-o’-war, thus demonstrating that she was manned by an exceptionally strong and efficient crew. As soon as she was clear of the ship she was brought to the wind, under an enormous spread of exquisitely cut canvas, and away she went, close-hauled on the port tack, heading to the northward at a pace which made us gape with astonishment; while the ship, with squared yards, gathered stern-way and first fell broadside-on to us, then gradually paid off until she was before the wind, when down she came driving toward us, yawing so broadly to port and starboard that it was easy to see she had nobody at her helm, which seemed to point pretty clearly toward the presumption of tragedy. A quarter of an hour later the catspaws were ruffling the surface of the water here and there all round us, and stirring our canvas at rapidly decreasing intervals, with the true breeze coming fast and close behind them; we, therefore, laid in our sweeps, put the helm up, trimmed our sheets on the port tack, took a long pull and a strong pull upon the halliards all round, and paid off just in time to receive the first of the true breeze into the hollows of our canvas, when, heeling over to the extent of a strake or so, away we too went, with a merry buzzing and seething of water under our bows and along our bends.

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