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"I'm a dying man," he groaned, "and I don't care. I don't care how soon it comes! 'Tis all over with me, and I shall never see my dear Sally no more!" So they tossed till day broke and showed Drake's Island ahead of them, and the whole Sound running with a tidy send of sea from the south'ard, grey and forlorn. Some were for turning back, but Pengelly wouldn't hear of it.
"No fear of you, if you go on as you have begun," remarked Dick, gazing approvingly at me. We were about the latitude of Madeira, when one morning we sighted a ship standing to the south'ard. As the day drew on, just as we were close to her, it fell calm, and she made a signal that she would send letters on board us to carry home. A boat put off from her, and came alongside.
"Meringe owes Somo four heads, three from the dysentery, an' another wan from a tree fallin' on him the last fortnight. He was the son of a chief at that." "Yes, and there's two heads more that the Arangi owes Somo," Van Horn nodded. "You recollect, down to the south'ard last year, a chap named Hawkins was lost in his whaleboat running the Arli Passage?" Haggin, returning along the deck, nodded.
A real spy seen and heard actually living in the Isle of Ransay, in the back premises, so to speak, of that all important base, with Heaven only knew what means of the information concerning matters to the south'ard, and in immediate touch with any marauders who might tap gently at the back door on a dark night; here was something to sober even a bankrupt ex-light-comedian.
Then Counahan tuk the hog-yoke an' thrembled over it for a whoile, an' made out, betwix' that an' the chart an' the singin' in his head, that they was to the south'ard o' Sable Island, gettin' along glorious, but speakin' nothin'. Then they broached another keg, an' quit speculatin' about anythin' fer another spell.
"No, sir," answered Cross; "the wind still holds steady at about west, though it seems a little inclined to back half a point or so to the south'ard, and it's clouded over again and gone very dark. We tacked at midnight, sir, according to your orders." "Midnight!" ejaculated George; "you surely do not mean to say it is midnight already, Cross?"
What was our dismay, when morning broke, to find that we were directly off the mouth of the harbour, and at such a distance that the keen eyes of the savages on the hills around might easily perceive our sail. We at once put the boat about, hoping to get again to the south'ard before we were discovered. "It's too late," cried Green; "I see the canoes coming."
None but fools would come ashore on this coast, from a wreck, widout their weepons." "Aye, an' they'll be carryin' their gold an' sich, too," said the skipper. "Lads, we'll do our best an' that bain't fightin' an' killin', i' this case, but the usin' o' our wits. Bill Brennen, tell off ten men an' take 'em along the path to the south'ard wid ye.
As for Cooky, if he isn't lively bat him between the eyes." I was aware of the compliment and pleased, in that no threat had accompanied my instructions. We were lying head to north-west, and it was his intention to jibe over all with the first puff. "We'll have the breeze on our quarter," he explained to me. "By the last guns the boats were bearing away slightly to the south'ard."
A night of calm, when sleep is well-nigh impossible in the sultry, muggy air, may be followed by a day of blazing sun and an oily swell from the south'ard, connoting great gales in that area of ocean we are sailing toward or all day long the Elsinore, under an overcast sky, royals and sky sails furled, may plunge and buck under wind-pressure into a short and choppy head-sea.
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