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Updated: May 16, 2025
Wondering what might be the meaning of this, I went on deck, but neither Mendouca nor Pedro was visible, and I did not choose to question the mate a surly, hang-dog, cut-throat-looking scoundrel, who had chosen to manifest an implacable hostility to myself from the moment that our eyes had first met.
But although we carried on day and night the Indiaman proving such a flyer that the Barracouta's people had their hands full to keep us in sight nothing more was seen of the Francesca, and we were at length driven to the conclusion that, failing to find us, Mendouca had resumed his voyage at a much earlier period than we had anticipated.
I accordingly went to him and said "Senor Mendouca, I have considered your request, and have decided to accede to it upon certain conditions." "Name them," answered Mendouca. "They are these," said I. "First, that my services shall be strictly confined to the keeping of a watch and the checking of your astronomical observations.
But, to my exceeding surprise, we were heading to the westward, and, hull-down about ten miles distant, was another craft dead ahead of us, also carrying a press of canvas. I turned to Mendouca for an explanation; and in answer to my look of inquiry he said "Yes, I want to overtake that brig, if I can.
Mendouca turned to me with an oath. "When it comes, it will come to us dead on end from the brig!" he exclaimed. "It is just like my cursed luck! Do you think it is too late to recall the boats?" "Yes," I answered decidedly. "They are now nearer the brig than they are to us, and their best chance certainly is to keep on as they are going."
"Well, I will tell you," said Mendouca thickly, helping himself to another caulker of rum he had already swallowed two tumblers of stiff grog since the subject had been broached, in addition to what he had previously taken "I will tell you, because, having made up my mind that you shall never rejoin your own people, the information is not likely to do Lobo any harm.
For it undoubtedly means that the brig's people are by no means as fast asleep as you have imagined them to be, Dugdale. How far off did you judge the boat to be when you saw her?" he demanded, turning again to the seaman. "A matter of a mile and a half, or perhaps a trifle more," was the answer. "Very well, then, that will do," answered Mendouca. "`Forewarned is forearmed, as the English say.
The boats had, up to this time, been paddling quietly and composedly along, the men evidently husbanding their strength for a final effort; but now, in response to a shout from Mendouca, they bent to their work, and sent the boats foaming along in a style for which I certainly should never have given them credit; they could scarcely have done better had they been the British man-o'-war's men that they had pretended to be; the oars bent, the water was churned into foam, and a miniature surge gathered under each boat's bow as the little craft was suddenly urged to racing speed.
In the exuberance of my delight I shouted to Mendouca, who was reclining in a hammock aft slung from the main-boom, and, of course, under the shelter of the awning "Hurrah! here comes a breeze at last, although I do not know where it has sprung from, for there is not a cloud to be seen."
"Quite so," I assented. "But should you fail to overtake yonder craft, you will lose a good deal of ground, will you not?" "Oh, we shall overhaul her, if she be the brig I believe her to be, and I have very little doubt upon that point," answered Mendouca.
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