‘Nay, I think it was on our larboard bow,’ said another.
The mate held up his hand, and we all listened for some fresh sign of the whereabouts of our scurvy neighbour. The wind had freshened a little, and we were slipping through the water at four or five knots an hour. Of a sudden a hoarse voice was heard roaring at our very side. ‘’Bout ship!’ it shouted. ‘Bear a hand on the lee-braces, there! Stand by the halliards! Bear a hand, ye lazy rogues, or I’ll be among ye with my cane, with a wannion to ye!’
‘It is a King’s ship, sure enough, and she lies just there,’ said Long John, pointing out over the quarter. ‘Merchant adventurers have civil tongues. It’s your blue-coated, gold-braided, swivel-eyed, quarter-deckers that talk of canes. Ha! did I not tell ye!’
As he spoke, the white screen of vapour rolled up like the curtain in a playhouse, and uncovered a stately war-ship, lying so close that we could have thrown a biscuit aboard. Her long, lean, black hull rose and fell with a slow, graceful rhythm, while her beautiful spars and snow-white sails shot aloft until they were lost in the wreaths of fog which still hung around her. Nine bright brass cannons peeped out at us from her portholes. Above the line of hammocks, which hung like carded wool along her bulwarks, we could see the heads of the seamen staring down at us, and pointing us out to each other. On the high poop stood an elderly officer with cocked hat and trim white wig, who at once whipped up his glass and gazed at us through it.
‘Ahoy, there!’ he shouted, leaning over the taffrail. ‘What lugger is that?’
‘The Lucy,’ answered the mate, ‘bound from Porlock Quay to Bristol with hides and tallow. Stand ready to tack!’ he added in a lower voice, ‘the fog is coming down again.’
‘Ye have one of the hides with the horse still in it,’ cried the officer. ‘Run down under our counter. We must have a closer look at ye.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ said the mate, and putting his helm hard down the boom swung across, and the Maria darted off like a scared seabird into the fog. Looking back there was nothing but a dim loom to show where we had left the great vessel. We could hear, however, the hoarse shouting of orders and the bustle of men.
‘Look out for squalls, lads!’ cried the mate. ‘He’ll let us have it now.’
He had scarcely spoken before there were half-a-dozen throbs of flame in the mist behind, and as many balls sung among our rigging. One cut away the end of the yard, and left it dangling; another grazed the bowsprit, and sent a puff of white splinters into the air.