‘No, no,’ returned the seaman. ‘It is a sort of boat—a big canoe. I can only see her when she lifts on the sea; but she carries a high mast forward, with a small mizen astern, and she is edging in for the side of the shoals. By God, sir, she is among them!’
I was standing by the dwarf as we heard this. He leaped upon the bulwarks, clambered a few feet into the rigging, and then dropped upon the deck, exclaiming:—‘The Piragua!’
‘What!’ says the captain, ‘your Piragua with the Indians and the Welshman?’
‘That and no other,’ answered Bedloe. ‘You see, gentlemen, I have told you no lies.’
‘The canoe is running for the lee of the large rock, where the dwarf lived,’ cries the man in the rigging.
‘Then, by the Lord, they are more in love with coral reefs and sand-banks than I am!’ replied Captain Jem.
‘I don’t know that they bean’t right, captain,’ cries the boatswain. ‘That rock is big enough to make a good shelter under its lee; and there’s a little cove there, if they can make it, where the small canoe was, where an undecked craft will be much snugger in such weather as this than out in the open sea.’
I was of the same opinion as the boatswain, and so I could see was Bedloe. All this time we continued head to sea, thrashing away at the great surges, and just holding our own.
‘Pilot!’ cried the captain, ‘why do you not run through the channel at once, without waiting for the strength of the squall?’
‘Because, captain,’ answered the little man, very promptly—‘because the wind comes in puffs, with lulls between; and neither I nor any other man can take a ship through these banks unless he has her in full command.’