"Stop!" shouted Raed. "It's no use! Don't you see how the ship's closing in?"
Then, catching off his cap, he waved it slowly toward the east. We saw the captain's glass go up to his eye. Again Raed motioned him to go.
Bang! A higher shot. It strikes a quarter of a mile ahead of the schooner, and goes skipping on. But the captain is still looking off to us, as if loath to desert us. A third time Raed waves his cap. He turns. Round go the booms. "The Curlew" starts off with a bound. The flag streams out wildly in the strong north-west wind.
Bang! That ball hits the sea a long way ahead of its mark. Even in these brief seconds the great shadowy ship has come perceptibly nearer. How she bowls along! We can see the white mass of foam at the bows as she rides up the swells.
A queer, lost feeling had come over me. In an instant it all seemed to have gone on at a far-past date. Looking back to that time now, I see, as in a picture, our forlorn little party standing there on the black, weathered ledges, gazing off,—Weymouth half a dozen rods down the rocks, where he had stopped when Raed called to him; Donovan a few rods to the right, shading his eyes with his hand; Raed with his arms folded tightly; Kit staring hard at the ship; Wade dancing about, swearing a little, with the tears coming into his eyes; myself leaning weakly on a musket, limp as a shoe-string; and poor old Guard whining dismally, with an occasional howl,—all gazing off at the rapidly-moving vessels.
"It was no use," Raed said, his voice seeming to break the spell. "We couldn't have got off to the schooner. See how swiftly the ship comes on! If the captain had waited for us to pull off, or even started up and let us go off diagonally, the ship would have come so near, that there would have been no escaping her guns. I don't know as there is now. If any of those shot should strike the masts, or tear through the sails, there would be no getting away.
"I want you to look at it just as I do," Raed continued; for we none of us had said a word. "If we had tried to get on board, 'The Curlew' would certainly have been captured, and we with her. Now she stands a chance of getting off."
Bang! What a tremendous gun! The large ship was getting off opposite. The report made the ledge tremble under us.
"Hadn't we better get out of sight?" Donovan said. "They may see us, and send a boat over here."
"No danger of that, I think," replied Raed. "They want to run the schooner down, and wouldn't care to leave their boat so far behind. This strong north-west wind favors them. Still I don't think they are gaining much. They're not going over ten or eleven knots. 'The Curlew' will beat that, I hope,—if none of those big shots hit her," taking out his glass. "How beautiful she looks!"