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They spoke a totally different dialect, or maybe language, to that of Vau Vau, for it was only an isolated word here and there that Samuela could make out. But presently, going forward through the crowd that thronged every part of the deck, I saw a man leaning nonchalantly against the rail by the fore-rigging, who struck me at once as being an American negro.
At the moment I am describing, Oliver Farwell had gone forward, and with several other boys was in the fore-rigging. What they were about I do not remember, but, looking up, I saw they were skylarking, and it seemed as if the others were trying to play Oliver some trick. Be that as it may, all of a sudden I saw one of them fall from aloft. I thought it was Oliver.
Passing into the waist of the ship, he provided himself with a suitable hatchet, and then, without speaking a syllable to any of the mute but attentive seamen, he sprang into the fore-rigging, every strand and rope-yarn of which was tightened by the strain nearly to snapping.
The second mate having removed the steel, charged Spratt to say nothing about the matter. When breakfast was over, I saw Cobb come on deck and look up at the sails. Then he strolled carelessly aft to the compass, and in another minute he, with the same assumed look of indifference, ascended the fore-rigging. He was some time aloft, and when he came down he again went below to his companions.
His monkey Queerface, brought from his last ship, just paid off on her return from the West Indies, was skipping about the fore-rigging, now hanging by his tail swinging to and fro, now descending with the purpose of attempting to carry off one of the boy's hats, then failing, scudding hand over hand up the rigging again like lightning, chattering and spluttering as he watched the rope's end lifted threateningly towards him, or dodging the bit of biscuit or rotten potato thrown at his head.
The fire was still visible, shining like a torch on the surface of the water, casting its beams abroad like "a good deed in a naughty world." Jack was sorry to see it, though he once more took its bearing from the brig, in order that he might know where to find the spot, in the event of a search for it. When on the stretcher of the fore-rigging, Jack stopped and again looked for his beacon.
A brief interval elapsed, and then the darkness was suddenly broken into by the ghastly glare of the port-fire, with which one of the men nimbly shinned up the fore-rigging in order to send the illumination as far abroad as possible, and at the same instant a musket was fired.
As we approached the bark the light grew rapidly brighter: but I did not realise how near we were until the lantern, which was hanging in the ship's fore-rigging, swung for an instant behind the jib-stay, and the vessel's illuminated cordage suddenly came out in delicate tracery against the black sky, less than a hundred yards away. "There she is!" shouted Sandford. "We're close on her!"
Between five and six the sun was then nearly three hours high the cry of "All starbowlines ahoy!" summoned our watch on deck; and immediately all hands were called. A true specimen of Cape Horn was coming upon us. We had got the light sails furled, the courses hauled up, and the topsail reef-tackles hauled out, and were just mounting the fore-rigging, when the storm struck us.
But it was not as the first-lieutenant had supposed; for before the cutlasses of the seamen had time again to strike fire upon the steel points which opposed their passage, McElvina reappeared in the fore-rigging of the French vessel, followed by his smugglers, who attacked the French troops in the rear, with a loud yell, and an impetuosity that was irresistible.
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