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Updated: June 8, 2025
It was a nervous time: now we seemed rushing on against a bank of trees, and directly we turned to the right hand or to the left, through another opening, the termination of which was completely hidden from our sight; and had I not felt confidence in Van Graoul, I should have fancied that we were running into a blind passage, without another outlet.
"While we had abundance of sea-room we were safe. Now, who can say what will be our fate?" Fairburn ordered a lamp for the binnacle; a sickly light was thrown on the compass. He rushed below. A glance at the chart showed that we were then driving towards the western end of Sumbawa. Van Graoul and I followed him. "Can we weather it and get into Allass Straits?" I asked, as I pointed to the chart.
Fairburn was of the same opinion. Van Graoul only shook his head, and said, "Wait a bit; better never to be sure." Still on we flew the water bubbling and hissing under the bows of the schooner as she clove her way through. Though the wind was strong, there was, at the same time, little sea.
I got my rifle, intending to have a shot at one of them; though I must own that I think it very wrong to kill animals without an object, when they can be of no use to any one, merely for the sake of trying one's dexterity as a marksman on them. "You had better not," observed Van Graoul, when he saw what I was about to do. "They may take it ill, and revenge themselves."
Fairburn and Van Graoul were in the meantime making inquiries among the masters of all the trading vessels in the harbour, whether they had seen or heard of a vessel which might prove to be the Emu. They, however, could only obtain rumours of her, and no one was met who had actually been attacked by her.
Van Graoul had charged me to let him say only a few words, to give me any information which may be on his mind, and then to urge him to go to rest. The first word he uttered was my name. "It is all very strange, indeed," he said. "But it is indeed a satisfaction to be with you, Seaworth, though I cannot tell how it has all occurred."
As we had to keep away when we fired, we somewhat lost ground: so Van Graoul proposed that we should get somewhat nearer before we tried another shot; and to this Fairburn agreed. Fairburn, it must be remembered, was the fighting captain. On we went, every instant gaining on the chase.
To our surprise, instead of returning the fire, or standing away from us, she rounded to and backed her main-top-sail till we ran alongside. "There is something odd here," remarked Van Graoul; "I cannot make it out." "Nor I," said Fairburn. "There is some treachery, I fear." "What brig is that?" I asked, through the speaking-trumpet.
Everybody on board experienced a feeling of blank disappointment, as in vain we looked in the hopes of seeing the royals of the brig appearing above the trees. Either Van Graoul had miscalculated her distance from us, or she had taken some other passage; or, as Dick Harper the Yankee seaman observed, she was in truth the Flying Dutchman.
"I thought no good of her when I saw her up-helm and run away from us as she did," said a third, a Yankee, who was one of the oracles of the crew. Van Graoul laughed. "We shall soon get a sight of her again," he said; "she will get becalmed among the trees, or will find the wind baffling, when we, with our fore and aft sails shall have the advantage."
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