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The brig was hull-down when seen from the boat, and Stephen calculated that she was six or seven miles out. She was steering south and had evidently less wind than that which was taking the cutter fast through the water. He made his course to a point some four miles south of the brig, so as to cut her off, and it was not long before it was evident to him that he should succeed in doing so.
After the setting of the moon we had lost sight of the guarda-costa until dawn once more betrayed her whereabouts. When first seen she was hull-down and about three points on our lee quarter, still under her two lugs and jib. So far, this was satisfactory; we had walked fairly away from her in her own weather, and Giaccomo was in ecstasies.
She was then broad on our starboard bow, and was still hull-down, but she had risen just to the foot of her fore course, which was set, while the mainsail hung in its clewlines and buntlines, and was running down with squared yards, but had no studding-sails set. And, as Carter had remarked, she seemed to be steering in such a manner as to intercept us.
At that rate she would sink long before we could get out of sight of her, although the breeze was now perceptibly stronger than it had been when I boarded the ill-fated ship. By the time that I had regained the deck of the Wasp, and that craft was once more under way, the pirate schooner was hull-down on the north-western horizon, nearly ten miles away.
Francisco shoved off his boat, and seizing his sculls, pushed astern, picked up the book, which still floated, and laid it to dry on the after-thwart of the boat. He then pulled in for the shore. In the meantime the schooner had let draw her foresheet, and had already left him a quarter of a mile astern. Before Francisco had gained the sand-bank she was hull-down to the northward.
"The Ponto has cold feet," explained the Zungeru's officer. "Her Old Man seems to be under the impression that there is a Hun scuttling around, so he's signalled for permission to tail on to us. The cruiser offered no objection, provided the speed of the convoy is unaffected, so by daylight the tramp will be hull-down, I expect." "Much ado about nothing," remarked Laxdale.
It was the close of the day. Over the baked veldt of Equatorial Africa a safari marched. The men, in single file, were reduced to the unimportance of moving black dots by the tremendous sweep of the dry country stretching away to a horizon infinitely remote, beyond which lay single mountains, like ships becalmed hull-down at sea.
And as I took my glasses from my eyes, and realized how small a portion of this great land-sea I had been able to examine; as I looked away to the ship-hills hull-down over the horizon, and realized that over all that extent fed the Game; the ever-new wonder of Africa for the hundredth time filled my mind-the teeming fecundity of her bosom.
The leading portion of the fleet was hove-to, hull-down, at sea, before the last craft in the convoy had succeeded in getting her anchor and making a start; but by noon the whole of the fleet was fairly in the Channel, when the Tremendous made the signal to fill, and away they all went, bowling along to the southward and westward, the dull sailers under every rag they could spread to the wind now settled into a fine steady royal-breeze from east-south-east, while the smarter craft were compelled to show only such a spread of canvas as would enable the dullards to keep pace with them.
Both were, of course, hull-down when we first sighted them, and broad on our port bow, standing to the northward close-hauled on the starboard tack, but as they were carrying on heavily, and we were travelling fast, we rapidly rose each other, and it then became evident that the second craft, a very fine and handsome brig, was in pursuit of the other, which was a full-rigged ship, apparently a British West Indiaman.
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