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It was fully as much as the boat could bear, in the keen, gusty east wind which was now blowing, and she bent, and laboured, and ploughed, and creaked upbraidingly as if tasked beyond her strength; but she sped along with a gallant swiftness. They drew nearer, and they heard the distant "ahoy" more clearly. It ceased. The anchor was up, and the ship was away.
The second mate, a squat and burly sea-dog, was first up on his feet in the white water, but stumbled over a struggling sailor who was kicking his heels in an attempt to rise. When the irate mate was up for the second time he knocked down this sailor and then strode ashore, his meek followers coming after on their hands and knees. "Ahoy, there, Dunk Butts!" called Cap'n Sproul, heartily.
Ship ahoy!" until their throats were so strained that their voices failed them, and they became unable to utter another sound. It was all to no purpose; their cries attracted not the slightest notice; the schooner ran rapidly away from them and at last George in despair laid in his oar, flung himself down in the sternsheets, and covered his eyes with his hands, to shut out the tantalising sight.
The rest was voices. "Dinghy ahoy!" "Ahoy!" "Ahoy!" "Don't be shoutin' together, or I'll not know which way to pull. Quarter-boat ahoy! where are yez?" "Port your helm!" "Ay, ay!" putting his helm, so to speak, to starboard "I'll be wid yiz in wan minute, two or three minutes' hard pulling." "Ahoy!" much more faint. "What d'ye mane rowin' away from me?" a dozen strokes. "Ahoy!" fainter still.
Lulled by the ring of his large stirrups, and rocking his body to the swing and swaying of the beast, the good fellow was thus traversing an adorable country, with his hands folded on his paunch, three-quarters gone, through heat, in a comfortable doze. All at once, on entering the town, a deafening appeal aroused him. "Ahoy! What a monster Fate is! Anybody'd take this for Monsieur Tartarin."
"Starboard it is," was the answer, and presently what looked like a hen-coop and a grating with a few spars lashed together, came in sight, and an object, evidently a human being, lying on it, but whether alive or dead could not at once be ascertained. Presently, however, as the ship was abreast of the raft, a man rose on his knees and waved his hand, while he shouted out, "Ship, ahoy!"
The LUCY BELLE churned around the bend, and turned in toward the tug. "She's going to speak us," marvelled Orde. "I wonder what the dickens she wants." "Tug ahoy!" bellowed a red-faced individual from the upper deck. He was dressed in blue and brass buttons, carried a telescope in one hand, and was liberally festooned with gold braid and embroidered anchors. "Answer him," Orde commanded Marsh.
The despatches from the Hague came down about nine o'clock, and Vanslyperken received them on board. About ten, he weighed and made sail, and hove-to about a mile outside, with a light shown as agreed. About the time arranged, a large boat appeared pulling up to the cutter. "Boat, ahoy!" "King's messenger with despatches," was the reply.
But I was not going to permit that if I could help it, and it soon became perfectly clear that we could, the schooner having the heels of the ship, although we were soon under the lee of the latter, with her sails partially becalming ours. At length, finding that we could outsail the Indiaman, I luffed close in under her lee and hailed, in the best Spanish that I could muster "Ho, the ship ahoy!
In the now diminishing light from the distant fire the boys could see that both were crowded with dark figures. "Must be at least twenty-five aboard the two," commented Stevens. "Yes," returned Spurling. "These fishermen carry big crews. Ahoy there! What's the name of your vessel?" "The Clementine Briggs, of Gloucester," replied a man in the bow of the foremost dory.
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