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Then it occurred to me to look out to sea, when, to my surprise, I saw the pirate schooner sailing away almost hull-down on the horizon! On seeing this I uttered a shout of joy. Then my first impulse was to dive back to tell my companions the good news; but I checked myself, and ran to the top of the cliff, in order to make sure that the vessel I saw was indeed the pirate schooner.
Near at hand, in the middle distance, far away, these fleets of the plain sailed, until at last hull-down over the horizon their topmasts disappeared. Above them sailed too the phantom fleet of the clouds, shot with light, shining like silver, airy as racing yachts, yet casting here and there exaggerated shadows below. The sky in Africa is always very wide, greater than any other skies.
"On deck, there!" I hailed. "There are two strange sail astern which seem to be running alongside and taking possession of a number of our craft; one large ship is heading south-east and already hull-down from the crosstrees here; and the two brigs the Hebe and the Naiad are about fifteen miles off, in the northern board, chasing five other craft."
And he patted the bright breach lovingly, sighting along the brazen barrel, and swinging the nose from right to left till he brought the gun to bear squarely on the white speck that was the pirate sloop, still hull-down in the sea ahead. "Come morning, Polly, my gal," he chuckled, "we'll let you talk to 'em."
Then the helm was put up and the ship was away on her old course once more, cracking on and showing every stitch of canvas to the freshening breeze, in full and eager pursuit of her consorts and the pirate, the latter now being hull-down on the southern horizon with nothing below her topsail-yard showing.
She was then hull-down, and to the non-professional eye there was nothing at all unusual in her appearance; she was simply a becalmed ship under topsails and topgallantsails, with her courses clewed up but not furled. A cloud of minute spots which could only be birds hovering round her, bore no significance to any one save Mildmay; and even he was not sure that he knew quite what it meant.
The launch lost way altogether, and refused any longer to answer her helm. As for the stranger, there she was, just hull-down; her snowy canvas gleaming in the brilliant morning sunshine, and so clearly defined that every rippling fold in the sails was distinctly visible as they flapped against the mast to the lazy roll of the vessel over the long sleepy swell.
But, to my exceeding surprise, we were heading to the westward, and, hull-down about ten miles distant, was another craft dead ahead of us, also carrying a press of canvas. I turned to Mendouca for an explanation; and in answer to my look of inquiry he said "Yes, I want to overtake that brig, if I can.
A coastguard was sending up flash signals which faded into a pale twinkle as the white dawn crept over the water. There was a good deal of shipping about, mostly fishing-boats and small coasting craft, with one large steamer hull-down to the west, and a torpedo destroyer between us and the land.
Meanwhile, the breeze which had sprung up so opportunely to take the brig out of our immediate neighbourhood not only lasted, but continued to freshen steadily, with the result that by the time that we had patched each other up, and were ready to undertake the mournful task of burying our slain, the wicked but beautiful craft that had inflicted such grievous injury and loss upon us had slid away over the ocean's rim, and was hull-down.
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