"No, and I don't suppose we shall know for a few hours. You may be sure that whatever course we take now will not be our real course, for I bet odds that after dark some fast little craft will sneak out of harbour to take the pirates news as to the course we are following, and to tell them that we have not taken a negro this time who would lead us a dance in the wrong direction. I should not be surprised if we are going to search the islands round Cuba for a change. We were among the bays and islets up north on our last cruise, and the captain may be determined to try fresh ground."
Needham's guess turned out to be correct, for after darkness fell the ship's course was changed, and her head laid towards Cuba. After cruising for nearly three weeks without success, they were passing along the coast of the mainland, when Nat, who had now given up his sling, went aloft with his telescope. Every eye on deck was turned towards the island, but their continued failures had lessened the eagerness with which they scanned the shore, and, as there was no sign of any break in its outline, it was more from habit than from any hope of seeing anything that they looked at the rugged cliffs that rose forty or fifty feet perpendicularly above the water's edge, and at the forest stretching up the hillsides behind them.
"You have seen nothing, I suppose, Tom?" he asked the sailor stationed in the main-top.
"Not a thing, Mr. Glover."
Nat continued his way up, and took his seat on the yard of the topsail. Leaning back against the mast, he brought his telescope to bear upon the land, and for half an hour scanned every rock and tree. At last something caught his eye.
"Come up here, Tom," he called to the sailor below. "Look there, you see that black streak on the face of the cliff?"
"I see it, yer honour."
"Well, look above the first line of trees exactly over it: isn't that a pole with a truck on the top of it?"
"You are right, sir! you are right!" the sailor said, as he got the glass to bear upon the object Nat had indicated, "that is the upper spar of a vessel of some sort, sure enough."
"On deck there!" Nat shouted.