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The little boats that lie tethered to the rings and stanchions of the old sea-wall are gaily painted as those I clambered in and out of in my own childhood; the salmon leap on the flood tide, schools of mackerel flash and play past quay-sides and foreshores, and by the windows the great vessels glide, night and day, up to their moorings or forth to the open sea.
Their canoe with most of their household goods had broken from its moorings in November, one night while they were encamped on the shore. The cave, their only shelter, was strewed with the beaks and feathers of birds, and with the teeth and claws of small animals; all the other portions of the game she had shot had been devoured in the extremity to which hunger had reduced them.
These were doubtless a signal, but they could scarcely convey any real information: the capture of the brig at its moorings was too unlikely a thing to have been provided against. But the shots would set the privateer on the alert, and we must run no risks of encountering her. So, instead of running straight out into the channel, we stood away up the coast, keeping the brig close-hauled.
Captain von Ehrhardt instantly slipped the remainder of his moorings, and setting fore and aft canvas, and going full steam ahead, succeeded in beaching his ship in Matautu; whither Knappe, recalled by this new disaster, had returned. The berth was perhaps the best in the harbour, and von Ehrhardt signalled that ship and crew were in security.
At last I caught sight of what I made sure was it, a fine large vessel just casting off her moorings. The tafferel was green. Three masts, yes, that must be it, and the gilt figure-head of Hercules. To be sure it had a three-pronged pitchfork in its hand instead of a club; but that might be my uncle's mistake; or perhaps Hercules sometimes varied his weapons.
What time the lower horn of a new moon touched the castellated piles on Mount Sulpius, and two thirds of the people of Antioch were out on their house-tops comforting themselves with the night breeze when it blew, and with fans when it failed, Simonides sat in the chair which had come to be a part of him, and from the terrace looked down over the river, and his ships a-swing at their moorings.
In a few moments he had anchored the sloop at her usual moorings, secured the sails very hastily, and was climbing the steep path to the road. In spite of the pride which had prompted him to refuse it, the pilot's fee was a godsend to him, or, rather, to his father, for he determined to give the money to him immediately.
There, at their moorings, lay the six huge line of battle ships which had lately belonged to the republican French, now the prize of English valour. The Northumberland, Achille, La Just, Impetueux, and America, the two latter the finest seventy-fours that had ever been seen in the British harbour, the Sans-Pareille, almost equalling in size the Queen Charlotte, and noted for her swift sailing.
I roused out a weather-thinned mainsail, black with mildew, and bent it; and by the time that was on the spars, he had completed his barter, and had been put on board again by a friend. We had a dozen words of conversation, and then got small canvas hoisted and quietly slipped moorings.
"There are plenty of fishermen's boats moored along the bank here. We shall soon leave Rome behind us." They stepped into a boat, loosened the moorings, and pushed off, and Malchus, getting out the oars, rowed steadily down the river until they neared its mouth.
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