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"Of course I gave a good look all round as soon as there was light enough to see properly; but there warn't so much as a gull in sight, and away to the nor'ard, and east'ard where I knowed you was, the sun dazzled my eyes so's I couldn't see.
"Look alive, you other chaps! That boy there will have done the job while you are thinking about it. Stir your stumps!" `Ugly' was the last of the lot; and, as I came down on the weather or starboard side of the ship, the wind then blowing from the nor'ard and eastward, he was just trying to creep through `the lubber's hole' into the top. "No you don't," shouted up the instructor after him.
If not' And then he flung open his pea-coat, and we saw four of the brass-mounted pistols in his belt. But, mates, his one eye was worse than the four muzzles, and we slunk to our work, and obeyed him. The easterly breeze came fresh, and we were soon bowling away nor'ard. The captain stood long at the helm, and we gathered for'ard. 'We're lost! said Bartholomew; 'we're lost men!
"If she had been half a mile to the nor'ard she might have stood through Norton Gut and been safe," observed Halliburt; "but if she is a stranger there is little chance of her hauling off in time to escape the sands."
Without another word they all bent their heads to the storm, and forced their way out upon the exposed beach, where they found some fishermen assembled in the lee of a boat-house, looking eagerly towards the direction whence the sounds came. "I'm afear'd she's got on the rocks to the nor'ard o' the bay," said one of the men, as Bax and his companions ran towards them; "there goes another gun."
"I wish the wind would shift over more to the nor'ard, and we'd then be able to shape a better course; we're going far too much to the west to please me! I suppose," he added in a louder tone, addressing the mate again, "she isn't making any great way yet since daylight, McCarthy, eh?"
Yet I see nothing; although if she had been stranded, either purposely or by accident, her wreck ought to be away in there somewhere about abreast of us. And there are no off-shore dangers, are there?" "The nearest that I know of are The Monks, away out here, some twenty-five miles to the nor'ard and east'ard of us," answered the master.
And when, little more than a year ago, I put the savings of a lifetime into the purchase of the old Walrus there, I thought that the dream of my life was soon to be realised, and that one trip more to the nor'ard would bring me in a sufficiency to last me the remainder of my days, and enable me to enjoy 'em in the company of my wife and my little daughter.
I saw no ice worth speaking of, to the nor'ard here, before we made sail." "Because you see'd none, Mr. Hazard; is no proof there is none. Floe-ice can't be seen at any great distance though its blink may. But, it seems to me, it's all blink in these here seas!" "There you're quite right, Stephen; for turn which way you will, the horizon has a show of that sort "
As Jack said, we had reason to be thankful that we had been picked up, for the weather came on very bad, and our boat could not have lived through it. The Chinamen kept a bright look-out, and seemed terribly afraid of the pirates. We tried to make them understand that we had seen the fleet sail to nor'ard a short time before, and we ourselves didn't like the thoughts of falling in with them.
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