"The people say one is the Happy-go-lucky, sir," drawled Smith.
"Heh? what! Happy-go-lucky? Yes, I recollect; I've boarded her twenty times—always empty. How's she standing?"
"She stands to the westward now, sir; but she was hove to, they say, when they first saw her."
"Then she has a cargo in her;" and Mr Appleboy shaved himself, dressed, and went on deck.
"Yes," said the lieutenant, rubbing his eyes again and again, and then looking through the glass, "it is her sure enough. Let draw the fore sheet—hands make sail. What vessel's the other?"
"Don't know, sir,—she's a cutter."
"A cutter? yes; may be a yacht, or may be the new cutter ordered on the station. Make all sail, Mr Tomkins; hoist our pendant, and fire a gun— they will understand what we mean then; they don't know the Happy-go-lucky as well as we do."
In a few minutes the Active was under a press of sail; she hoisted her pendant, and fired a gun. The smuggler perceived that the Active had recognised her, and she also threw out more canvas, and ran off more to the westward.
"There's a gun, sir," reported one of the men to Mr Stewart, on board of the yacht.
"Yes; give me the glass—a revenue cutter; then this vessel in shore, running towards us, must be a smuggler."