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Updated: June 16, 2025
"Now," Captain Lockett, said when they were within half a mile of Algeciras, "we will run out this tack. There are two gunboats in our way, I see, but we must take our chance of them. "Go and wave a handkerchief from the bow, Joe. Mr. Crofts will be on the lookout for the signal." The two vessels held away on the port tack.
I will ask Teddy Burke to come up and join us." "Then I think, Gerald," his wife said, smiling, "that as Captain Lockett will be here, too, one bottle of champagne will not go very far." "I put it tentatively, my dear; We will say two bottles, and we will make the first inroad on our poultry yard.
As she breasted Europa Point, her course was altered to east by north, and the Rock faded from sight in the darkness. The first mate was on watch, and Bob walked up and down the deck with him. "There is no occasion for you to keep up," Joe Lockett said. "You may just as well turn." "Oh no, I mean to keep the watch with you!" Bob said.
"Take it easy now, Mr. Lockett. I don't think she will fire any more. When the men have got their wind, row on again. I shall head her out, now. We must give her a good three miles offing, before we stop." The men in the four boats had been exerting themselves to their utmost, and it was five minutes before they began rowing again.
In five minutes, Bob stood again on the deck of the Antelope, and a hearty greeting was exchanged between him and Captain Lockett. "Before I tell you anything, Captain, which cabin am I to have? I will tell you why, afterwards. I suppose it will be my old one?" "Yes; that is our one spare cabin, Bob. But I don't know why you are in such a hurry about it."
"I want them to think that we are frightened," Captain Lockett said, in answer to a question from Bob as to the course, "and that we have decided to get away from their neighbourhood, altogether. I expect they are only going as far as Alicante. We will run on till we are well out of sight, then hold on for the rest of the day east and, in the night, head for land again, beyond Alicante.
The barque was the slowest craft of the three, and Joe Lockett had every stitch of canvas set, to enable him to keep up with the others. At noon, a large craft was seen, coming off from the land. Bob examined her with the telescope, and then handed the glass to Brown. "She is a frigate," the sailor said. "It's the same that blazed away at us, yesterday. It's the Brilliant, I think."
Four or five minutes elapsed; and then, in the stillness of the evening, they could hear a loud hail, in Spanish: "What ship is that? Cease rowing, or we will sink you!" "Don't answer," Captain Lockett said. "They have nothing but the confused sound of the oars to tell them where we are."
O'Halloran; and told her that he did so in order to acquaint her with the extremely favourable report Captain Lockett had made, to him, of Bob's conduct; and that, from what he had said, it was evident that the lad had shown great courage in undertaking the swim to the Spanish vessel, and much promptness and ready wit in suggesting the device that had deceived him, as well as the Spaniards.
"Well, Bob, you may say what you like," Doctor Burke said, "but it is quite evident that the captain thought there was a good deal in it. "And I think really, Gerald, that you and Mrs. O'Halloran have good reason to feel quite proud of him. I am not joking at all, when I say that Captain Lockett really spoke as if he considered that the good fortune they had had is very largely due to him.
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