“All’s ready, Sir!” said that person.
“Who is at the helm?” asked Hildebrand.
“Tom Tarpaulin.”
“Then, I will post myself beside him,” resumed Hildebrand. “Do thou look out for’ard.”
Without further discourse, he ascended to the poop, or stern of the vessel, and stationed himself beside the helmsman. Tarpaulin—for the helmsman was no other—was steering straight before the wind’s eye, in a slanting direction, under the stern of the gun-boat, which was about two ships’ lengths ahead. From their superior elevation, they were able to view the deck of the gun-boat; but whether from the darkness, or that the deck was really unoccupied, they could not distinguish any of the crew. Gradually they drew closer and closer to the gun-boat’s stern. They scarcely ventured to breathe at this critical juncture; and the silence of so many men, all prompt for action, and within view of each other, augmented its terrible interest. The creaking of the tall masts, bowing before the breeze, and the hoarse murmur of the waves, as they turned aside before the ship’s bows, only made the silence more apparent, and the ear returned no echo to their inanimate noise.
A brief interval brought them right athwart the gun-boat’s stern. There was no alarm. They still passed on, as at first, without interruption, though now in a more direct course. The turn of the helm, by which their course had been changed, brought them abreast of their enemy, at about twenty feet distance. The death-like silence still prevailed: every ear still thrilled with excitement; when the full, deep voice of Hildebrand, raised to its highest pitch, rang through the vessel.
“Master Halyard!” he cried, “put out all our canvas, man the after guns, and prepare for boarders!”
The silence was now at an end. The naked feet of the sailors, obedient to the orders of Halyard, were heard rushing in various directions over the deck; the hauling of ropes, the flapping of canvas, the creaking of spars, bending under the weight of sail, rendered a response to the whistling breeze; and, above all, the voices of some half-dozen men, as they set the mainsail, were heard merrily singing—
“Hoy, hoy, hoy!
Mainsail, lads, hoy!
Mainsail, mainsail, hoy!”