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We got the boat round without much risk, and, in less time than it takes to write it, were sending down towards the ship at a furious rate. I steered, and passed so near the frigate's rudder, that I thought, for an instant, I had gone too close. A rope was hove as we cleared the lee-quarter of the frigate, and the people on board hauled us alongside.
This lasted but for a moment, however, and, as soon as I got at work, the feeling gave me no trouble. We were an hour getting the ship ready, and, by that time, the brig was within half a mile, luffing fairly up on our lee-quarter. As we had shortened sail, the privateer manifested no intention of throwing a shot to make us heave-to. She seemed disposed to extend courtesy for courtesy.
"One word more, boys," said the old man, just as the pirate came round under the stern. "Now watch every movement I make, and be ready to jump the moment I speak." As Captain Spinnet ceased speaking, the pirate luffed under the fisherman's lee-quarter, and, in a moment more, the latter's deck was graced with the presence of a dozen as savage-looking mortals as eyes ever rested upon.
At the same instant her lee-quarter boat dropped into the water, with the crew in it, a boy of a mid-shipman scrambled down the ship's side and entered it also, a lieutenant followed, when away the cockle of a thing swept on the crest of a sea, and was soon pulling round under our stern.
Here she came by the wind, and favoured by the momentum with which she had come down, and the addition of the main-sail, drew heavily but steadily up on her lee-quarter.
Having well ballasted the holds of our human vessels, we weighed anchor, hoised up sail, stowed the boats, set the land, and stood for the offing with a fair loom gale, and for more haste unpareled the mizen-yard, and launched it and the sail over the lee-quarter, and fitted gyves to keep it steady, and boomed it out; so in three days we made the island of Tools, that is altogether uninhabited.
His first look was toward the light-house, now on the vessel's lee-quarter; but the spot where had so lately been seen the form of Mulford, showed nothing but the glittering brightness of the white-washed stones! The reader will not be surprised to learn that all these events produced a strange and deep impression on board the Molly Swash.
"Yon vessel shows no lights; and, for that matter, she has such a misty look, that one might well question its being a ship at all. Then, again, the Dutchman is always seen to windward, and the strange sail we have here lies broad upon our lee-quarter!" "It is no Dutchman," said Wilder, drawing a long breath, like a man awaking from a trance. "Main topmast-cross-trees, there!"
As a matter of course, the strange ship, which kept on the same line of sailing as before, drew ahead of us a little, while we neared her sensibly. In the course of three hours we were within a league of her, but well on her lee-quarter. Marble now unhesitatingly pronounced her to be a Frenchman, there being no such thing as mistaking the sails.
"Sail, ho!" shouted a voice, from out atop, which sounded in the ears of our adventurer like the croaking of some sinister spirit, sweeping across the deep. "Whereaway?" was the stern demand. "Here on our lee-quarter, sir," returned the seaman at the top of his voice. "I make her out a ship close-hauled; but, for an hour past, she has looked more like mist than a vessel."
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