It was now the first of March. The brigantine General Knox, Edward Hiller, master, was working her way to the eastward. She was homeward bound from Matanzas, having lain in Portland during a severe gale, where she had discharged her cargo. A heavy sea was still running, and the vessel, close hauled on the wind, and under short sail, being light, was knocking about at a great rate. Captain Hiller had been from boyhood a deep-water sailor, but, having married the year before, took a smaller vessel, traded to the West Indies in winter, and coasted in the summer. He was now bound home for a summer’s coasting, having his brother Sam for mate, and a crew composed of his neighbors’ boys, two of whom, John Reed and Frank Wood, were his cousins. Captain Hiller was amusing himself with humming the old capstan ditty,—
“Storm along, my hearty crew,
Storm along, stormy,”—
in tones which sounded like a nor’wester, whistling through a grommet-hole, at times varying his occupation by sweeping the horizon with his glass. At length he said to the man at the helm,—
“John, what island is that on the lee bow?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“I’ll ask our Sam: he is pilot all along shore, and knows every rock, and everybody. Sam, come aft here.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“What island is that to leeward?”