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Then, however, he lost his prudence for a moment, and anxiously inquired: "Were any of you drowned?" "Not any of us that are here," responded the captain, grimly. "No, nor any other of the Goshhawk men, but there are more wrecks in sight below, and I don't know how many from them got ashore. Our bark stranded this side of them, and she's gone all to pieces.
At that hour, however, there arrived upon the Goshhawk a bit of unexpected news which awakened everybody, for the man at the lookout announced, excitedly: "Schooner under Mexican flag, sir! Well away to loo'ard. Looks as if she might come pretty nigh us." "Just the thing I wanted!" shouted Captain Kemp, springing to his feet. "We'll bear away for her. Up with the British flag, too.
Well to the westward, with every sail spread that she could carry, the Goshhawk sped along in apparent safety, but she was once more carrying the American flag, and Ned Crawford, busy below at his breakfast, felt a great deal easier in his patriotic mind.
The waves were breaking clean over it, but, at the same time, it was breaking them, so that around in the lee of it the water was less boisterous, and the yawl might reach the beach in safety. There was no wharf, but all Ned cared for was that he saw no surf, and he felt better than he had at any moment since leaving the Goshhawk.
I don't really see that Ned is in any danger. Captain Kemp will take care of him." "But," she said, "the Goshhawk may be captured." "No," replied Mr. Crawford, confidently. "She hasn't sailed across prairie to the Rio Grande. There won't be any fighting at Vera Cruz for ever so long. There can't be any on the sea, for Mexico has no navy. The Goshhawk is entirely safe, and so is Ned.
I've sighted one more light, off there ahead of us, and I'm going to make it do something for the Goshhawk. Those other chaps can't see it yet." "What in all the world can he be up to?" thought Ned, as he listened, but the cunning skipper of the bark had all his wits about him.
"I think so myself," said Señor Zuroaga. "Don't even stay here for breakfast. Nobody from here must come to the consul's with Señor Carfora." "Of course not," said the captain, wearily, and away he went, although Ned felt as if he were full to bursting with the most interesting kind of questions concerning the captain's night in the life-boat and the sad fate of the swift and beautiful Goshhawk.
You have nothing to do with the wrecking of the Goshhawk, for you weren't on board when she parted her cable. But just look at those people!" Ned did so, for the room, a large and well-furnished office, was almost crowded with Americans of all sorts, mostly men, whose faces wore varied expressions of deep anxiety. "What are they all here for?" asked Ned. "Safety!" growled the captain.
Still, it's kind of awful to be shot at by our own people." The sailors of the Goshhawk were also thinking, and they were beginning to look at one another very doubtfully. Not only were they Americans, most of them, but they had not shipped for any such business as this, and they did not fancy the idea of being killed for nothing.
"This 'ere's getting kind o' thick!" The weather also was getting thicker, and all three of the racers were shortly under a prudent necessity for reducing their excessive spreads of canvas. The first mate of the Goshhawk had even been compelled to expostulate with his overexcited skipper. "Some of it's got to come down, sir," he asserted. "If we was to lose a spar, we're gone, sure as guns!"
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