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I was on my feet in a moment, and looking astern as I came up, I saw through the gloom of night a large vessel to the southward, apparently standing to the eastward, while a smaller one, which I took to be the Flore, had hauled her wind, and was steering west.
The whole steamer then plays the whale as an angler plays a fish, letting out line sometimes two miles of it towing with stopped engines at first, and then winding in while giving quarter, half, and three-quarter speed astern, as the steamer gains on the whale. Even a steamer, however, has been charged, stove, and sunk.
A second passed so long that it seemed like a minute, while Colin waited shiveringly to hear the crashing of the timbers and to see that fearful weapon flash up between them, but as silently as a shadow the lithe gray fighting machine shot up from the deep a yard or two astern of the boat and, falling limply, turned on his side, dead. The captain smiled.
I'm a good mind to sink ye for your scurvy trick. Pull down that dirty rag there, astern!" With a loud huzza, Israel hauled down the flag with one hand, while with the other he helped the now slowly gliding craft from falling off before the wind. In a few moments a boat was alongside.
The men brought their boat astern and came aboard. I asked them further about Captain Flett, and learned that he, with the mate and Jerry, had only the evening before gone back to Orkney in a Kirkwall fishing sloop.
Another and another quickly followed, each nearer than that which had preceded it; and presently, far away astern of us, we saw advancing toward us a sort of wall of vapour, the lower edge of which gleamed white and phosphorescent as the wind in it lashed the surface of the water into foam. "Hands, shorten sail!" was now the word.
The latter went on to say, 'You see, sir, it's my children's fortune, my boy Edward's, and my little Julia's: and so many have been trying to get it from me, that my blood boils up in a moment about it now. My poor head! You don't seem to understand what I am saying! There then, I am a sailor; I can't go beating and tacking like you landsmen, with the wind dead astern.
He roared them after us until we had left him far astern; and at the last we heard him laughing long and hoarsely. "What dat yeh man think we all am? He think we all gwine believe dat yeh? Hgh!" the cook growled. But Neddie Benson dolefully shook his head.
I saw Mary cling closer to her father in fear and trembling, all the time watching me with furtive glances, lest she should be observed by her captors. I kept my musket in my hand, pretending to be watching the boats; and as they were now astern, I came aft for that purpose.
"There can be no doubt of the twenty sail, Sir Gervaise, though the vessels astern are still too distant to speak of their size. I rather think it will turn out fourteen of the line and only three frigates." "That is rather too much for us, certainly, without Bluewater. His five ships, now, and this westerly position, would make a cheering prospect for us.
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