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"Born here! well, we'll hear all about that to-morrow just now, we'll make up for lost time, for we've had nothing to eat or drink since Wednesday morning. Look alive, my lads! get up the hurricane-house. Jim, put the pail of water into the kettle, and send the islander here for another pailful, for grog."
A seaman was passing along the outer edge of the hurricane-house at the moment, coming from the wheel, and with the decision of an old salt, he quietly passed his knife across the stretched cordage, and it snapped like pack-thread. The grapnel fell into the sea, and the boat was lossing in the wake of the ship, all as it might be while one could draw a breath.
This part of the ship, then, had partially escaped the confusion of the moment; though trunks, boxes, hampers, and other similar appliances of travelling, were scattered about in tolerable affluence. Profiting by the space, of which there was still sufficient for the purpose, most of the party left the hurricane-house to enjoy the short walk that a ship affords.
The vessel was now so near that Mulford plainly saw the boatswain get upon the coach-house, or little hurricane-house deck, where Spike stood examining the ship with his glass, and point out the boat, where it lay at the side of the rock. In an instant, the glass was levelled at the spot, and the movements on board the brig immediately betrayed to Mulford that the boat was recognised.
Sharp, who stood on the hurricane-house, called out for the glass, in order to ascertain what a party of the Arabs, who were collected near the in-shore end of the reef, were about. Paul Blunt went up to him, and made the examination. His countenance fell as he gazed, and an expression like that of hopelessness was again apparent on his fine features, when he lowered the glass.
After these flourishes, the new comers descended to the cabin in company, not without pausing to survey the party in the hurricane-house, more especially Eve, who, to old Ann's great scandal, was the subject of their manifest and almost avowed admiration and observation.
Effingham led his daughter into the hurricane-house or, as the packet-men quaintly term it, the coach-house, where they stood watching the movements on the quarter-deck for the next half-hour; an interval of which we shall take advantage to touch in a few of the stronger lights of our picture, leaving the softer tints and the shadows to be discovered by the manner in which the artist "tells the story."
The place they occupied, at a window of the hurricane-house, did not admit of a view of the water; but it was sufficiently evident from the preparations in the gangway next the land, that boats were so near as to render that unnecessary. "Genus cockney; species, bagman," muttered John Effingham, as the first arrival touched the deck.
"Luff it is sir!" answered the man at the wheel, who stood abaft the hurricane-house, covered by its roof, over which he was compelled to look, to get a view of the sails. "Luff I may, and luff it is, sir."
Captain Truck now explained that there was a person below who had been known to him as Sir George Templemore, and who, doubtless, was the unhappy delinquent sought. But Captain Ducie did not betray the attention or satisfaction that one would have expected from this information, his eye being riveted on Paul, who stood beneath the hurricane-house.
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