“Put an oar to leeward,” said Considine, “and keep her up more to the wind, and I promise you, my lads, you will not go home fresh and fasting if you land us where you say.”
“Here they come,” said the other boatman, as he pointed back with his finger towards a large yawl which shot suddenly from the shore, with six sturdy fellows pulling at their oars, while three or four others were endeavoring to get up their rigging, which appeared tangled and confused at the bottom of the boat; the white splash of water which fell each moment beside her showing that the process of bailing was still continued.
“Ah, then, may I never—av it isn’t the ould ‘Dolphin’ they have launched for the cruise,” said one of our fellows.
“What’s the ‘Dolphin,’ then?”
“An ould boat of the Lord’s [Lord Clanricarde’s] that didn’t see water, except when it rained, these four years, and is sun-cracked from stem to stern.”
“She can sail, however,” said Considine, who watched with a painful anxiety the rapidity of her course through the water.
“Nabocklish, she was a smuggler’s jolly-boat, and well used to it. Look how they’re pulling. God pardon them, but they’re in no blessed humor this morning.”
“Lay out upon your oars, boys; the wind’s failing us,” cried the count, as the sail flapped lazily against the mast.
“It’s no use, yer honor,” said the elder. “We’ll be only breaking our hearts to no purpose. They’re sure to catch us.”
“Do as I bade you, at all events. What’s that ahead of us there?”