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The old sailor was thinking nothing of this sort. His eyes were fixed on a small and almost imperceptible stain on the horizon to the sou'-sou'-west. It was no doubt another island almost hull-down on the horizon. Save for this blemish the whole wheel of the sea was empty and serene. Emmeline had not followed them up to the rock.
By now the sun was shining, and the rain clouds had about vanished, being "hull-down" in the distance, as Jud expressed it; for since they were now on a voyage, he said that they might as well make use of such nautical terms as they could remember. "That's the roaring Radway, I take it," observed Gusty, as all of them caught glimpses of the river through the trees ahead.
By the time that we had all breakfasted the wind had so far moderated that it became necessary to make sail upon the cutter; the "Vigilant" having crept up well abeam of us, though still hull-down and apparently close in with the land.
The brig was hull-down to us; but from the steadiness with which her head was kept pointing to the westward I conjectured that she was either sweeping or being towed by her boats.
They paused there but to pass: the blue- clad China-boy, the San Francisco magnate, the mystery in the dust coat, the secret memoirs in tweed, the ogling, well-shod lady with her troop of girls; they did but flash and go; they were hull-down for us behind life's ocean, and we but hailed their topsails on the line.
It would be hard at any other time to find the gulf around here so utterly forsaken," he remarked, beginning to feel discouraged himself. "It certainly looks as though we had the field to ourselves," remarked Bluff; "here we've come some miles from shore, which is getting 'hull-down, as the sailors say, in the distance, and yet not a peep of the lost balloonists.
In the present case, however, the breeze lasted nearly two hours before it failed us, by which time we had left the brig hull-down astern of us, and had enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing the boats abandon the chase and return to their parent ship. These partial breezes are among the most exasperating phenomena which tax a sailor's patience.
Johnson waited until another flash came, revealing the frigate still upon the same course, and then he gave orders for his vessel to be kept away, steering this time to the southward and eastward, or about at right angles to the course of the frigate. Ten minutes later the latter was hull-down. "Now we're safe!" ejaculated the pirate skipper delightedly.
This arrangement was carried out in its entirety, the party spending a very enjoyable day on deck, although there was little or nothing to be seen, only two craft both of them steamers being sighted during the day. They were steering north, and were hull-down, so that they probably failed to notice the presence of the Flying Fish.
THE armed brigantine had been out several days on the voyage to Virginia when a vessel was sighted hull-down. Captain Wellsby and Colonel Stuart decided to edge over and take a look at the stranger although they were not anxious to engage an enemy of heavier metal. If, however, this should happen to be Blackbeard in the Revenge they were in no mood to avoid him, despite the odds.
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