‘The matter,’ said Peralta, ‘is, that we must get to sea as soon as we can. Thank God the breeze comes fresher—that puff quite ruffled the water. Jenipa,’ this was to the mulatto, ‘jump forward and cut the cable—no time for weighing. Disco, get a sweep or an oar out on the larboard bows to cant her head round. Lindsay, bear a hand, my man, and get the canvas upon her, or some of our friends ashore will be swimming down upon us with their knives in their teeth.’
The coolness of Peralta was capital to see. Just as Jenipa’s knife went with a cheep through the strands of the hemp, Disco’s oar dashed into the water, and the stream catching the larboard bows of the piragua, she swung round with her head towards the shore we had just left, while Peralta, who worked as though he had been afloat all his life, flung loose the foresail from the long supple bamboo yard, and then both of us clapping on to the haulyards with all our might, the light canvas, all dripping with the night dew, rose steadily to the top of the mast, and then catching the faint puff of the sea breeze, which has but little power when it blows in the night-time, the sail swelled gracefully out, while Peralta, with the sheet in his hand, leaped aft, catching hold of the tiller, and calling to us all to get the mainsail upon the piragua. We were, as the reader may guess, in no humour for trifling, and accordingly the big lugsail was very soon hoisted by rapid jerks, up the mast, and when, after having made fast the haulyards, and trimmed the sheet aft, I paused a moment and looked round, I was quite bewildered. The breeze was hardly sufficient to keep the wide sails sleeping. I heard no loud rushing gurgle, such as a vessel makes travelling fast through the water; yet the lights upon shore were flying by us as though we were borne on horseback towards the sea—the great white flakes and stripes of froth which had floated into the river from the bar, glanced past, showing like light veins and streaks in dark marble—while the skiffs which Peralta had cut loose were almost out of sight astern.
I uttered an exclamation of wonder, at which Peralta laughed pleasantly.
‘Your Will-o’-the-Wisp may be fast, Señor Buccaneer,’ he said, ‘but no craft that ever came off the stocks of European ship-builders will sail with the boats which the Indians—savages we call them—can scoop with rude tools out of a single glorious tree. Do we not move like an apparition—a sea spirit? Let the Spaniards chase us in their clumsy wooden boxes, the piragua will earn her right to her name though all the navy of Old and New Spain were flashing in her wake. I call her the “Ghost;” does not she glide like one fleeting to the sepulchre at the first glimpse of the light of the morning?’
I looked at Peralta, beginning to suspect that the sudden flurry, coming after the humming wine, caused him to vapour a little—but, if it were so, he very soon came to himself.
‘Hark!’ said Disco, ‘the surf on the bar.’
‘And see,’ added Jenipa, ‘the lights of the Pearl Fleet close to in the offing.’
‘Forward, and look out, both of you,’ cried Peralta, sharply. ‘Keep your eyes open on either bow.’
Meantime I crouched down by the steersman on the weather-quarter. The lofty lights of the frigate were much further to sea than the squadron she guarded. Indeed, the great ship cared not for approaching too closely the many banks and spits of sand, which run out from the bar, and over which most of the smaller barks could float very well. The leading ships, however, appeared to be as close to the bar on one side as we were on the other.
‘Now,’ said Peralta, ‘grant that the stupidity of those fellows on shore will keep them from making any signal to their comrades out at sea.’ But the words were hardly out of his mouth, when the water and the sky were lit up with a mighty flash, and the loud report of a great gun—a small battery of which was planted before the fort—came rolling down the river; and immediately afterwards a straggling volley of small arms rattled all along the bank, as though the soldiers were dispersed and running down towards the sea. By this time, the white water on the bar was close ahead.