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Last night, whether we was on the watch, or turned in to our hot bunks, every man Jack of us felt that the Bun was right, and a bit envious of him, because, poor chap, he would have been safe. They wouldn't have took him; but we all of us fully expected to see that boat coming back for us this morning. But not only aren't there no boat, but the sloop's slipped away in the night and gone."
As they came within hail, their savage crews cried, "Amigo yammerschooner," "Anclas aqui," "Bueno puerto aqui," and like scraps of Spanish mixed with their own jargon. I had no thought of anchoring in their "good port." I hoisted the sloop's flag and fired a gun, all of which they might construe as a friendly salute or an invitation to come on.
All these denizens of Barnegat had at one time or another climbed up the sloop's chains and peered down the hatchway to the sand covering the keelson, and most of them had used it as a shelter behind which, in swimming-time, they had put on or peeled off such mutilated rags as covered their nakedness, but no one of them had yet conceived the idea of turning it into a Bandit's Home.
In no time some of the sloop's liberty-men were already running down to the water's edge, and the party of seamen, under orders against the Pirates, were putting off to the Columbus in two boats. "O Christian George King sar berry sorry!" says that Sambo vagabond, then. "Christian George King cry, English fashion!"
I immediately sent her away with more Men and Armes for the better Securing of the Sloop's Company, but that night, in Longreach, the Vessel being near the Shore, and almost Calme, they hoisted the boat out to tow the Sloop about, and all the Sloop's men, being 18, got into her and Run ashore, bidding defiance to my people's fireing." Admiralty Records 1. 1473 Capt.
The sloop-of-war and the Revenue cutter, its companion, had been lying at anchor some hundred yards from the end of the pier, and every now and then the sailor glanced at the trim vessels with their white sails and the sloop's carefully-squared yards all "ataunto," as he termed it and more than one sigh escaped his lips as he thought that never again would he tread the white deck that he helped to holy-stone, let alone show that he was one of the smartest of the crew to go up aloft.
"Well, sir," said the former, "as you say, we're out of the reach of the sloop's guns; but if anything happens to us, we may be sure that the captain will take pretty good revenge." "And a deal of good that will do us, Jones," said the lieutenant. "I believe that scoundrel is leading us into a trap."
And my longing to know all that I could find out about it backed by the certainty that I should not come upon anything below that would revolt me led me to go searching in the shattered cabin for some clue to the sloop's name and nationality, and to the cause in which her death-fight had been fought.
I reefed the sloop's sails, and sitting in the cabin to rest my eyes, I was so strongly impressed with what in all nature I might expect that as I dozed the very air I breathed seemed to warn me of danger. My senses heard "Spray ahoy!" shouted in warning.
Vane had not spent a long time in Vancouver, but he had the gift of making friends. Having heard of the sloop's arrival, they had come to inquire for him, and there was obviously a number of them. Mrs. Nairn glanced interrogatively at Carroll. "It does no look as if they could be got rid of by a message." "I guess he's fit to see them," Carroll answered, "We'll hold a levee.
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