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All this while, the Antonio had been so intent on hooking the Carthagenian, that the sloop was nearly up to him before he hove about and gave up the chase; and now the tables were beautifully turned on him, for the Seaflower's shot was flying over and over him in whole broadsides, and he must have been taken, when, crack, away went the sloop's foretopgallant mast, which gave the rogue a start.

"Well, the inquiry was held, of course, and my father gave evidence, and for the rest they had to trust to the sloop's papers, for not a soul was saved besides the drummer-boy, and he was raving in a fever, brought on by the cold and the fright.

The day was perfect for the return voyage, a fair breeze blew against her weather-stained sails, and the ocean was as blue as sapphire. The entire party was glad to be on the sloop's clean decks once more; even Dave seemed happy and relieved when Durgan's Cove and its outlying shores faded into a velvety green blur along the horizon.

Probably he feared to make too plain an opposition, with that dark-hulled, sombre, ugly-looking submarine torpedo boat lying so close at hand. "Now, heave us a line, Eph!" hailed Hal. The line came, and was caught. Hal slipped over the further side with it, vanishing under water long enough to make it fast to one of the submerged cleats of the sloop's rail.

He had found a man exactly to his hand in a certain Roger Skreene, whose name might almost be thought to be adopted for the occasion and to express the part he had to act. He was what we may call the sloop's husband, but was bound to do whatever Murray commanded, to ask no questions, and to be profoundly ignorant of the real objects of the expedition.

Every merchant has his own room, or division, in the hold, in which he stows his own goods, sometimes lodging along with them. These junks have only two masts, a main and fore, the latter having a square-sail and yard, and the former a sail that is narrow aloft, like a sloop's main-sail. In fine weather they have also a top-sail, which, in foul weather, they lower to the deck, yard and all.

So Baxter shook out the sloop's jib and mainsail and started on his journey eight miles seaward, with orders to make fast on arrival to the spar buoy which lay within a few hundred yards of the Ledge, and there wait until the tide turned, when she could drop into position to unload. The tug with all of us on board would follow when we had taken on fresh water and coal.

But never mind; it will do I have known them take in a whole sloop's crew that were stranded on the sands. 'You may run some risk, though, by turning up to Fairladies; for I tell you they are all up through the country. 'Never mind I may chance to put some of them down again, said Nanty, cheerfully. 'Come, lads, bustle to your tackle. Are you all loaded?

But fresh winds filled the sloop's sails once more, and I watched the beacon-light at Plantation House, the governor's parting signal for the Spray, till the island faded in the darkness astern and became one with the night, and by midnight the light itself had disappeared below the horizon.

"I tell you," said Shipp, "your brother has gone to Birmingham, and you were on the point of being ruined. Let go, men, or it will be worse for you!" Hearing this, the boat-hook was instantly loosed, and the tide swept the boat from the sloop's side in a moment.