“Well, I am rather uneasy, sir. Miller would be more likely to be a day too soon than too late, and with the wind from the south he could have calculated his time here from wherever he happened to be, within an hour or two. The wind has been strong with us, and for aught I know it may have been blowing a gale more to the east. We don’t know much about the sailing qualities of the polacca, certainly she was very light in ballast, and if she has been caught off a lee shore in a heavy gale she may not have been able to claw off, especially if she happened to be embayed when it came on. Of course we must give him twenty-four hours more, but if he does not come then we will shape our course north-east and cruise along the coast; as we get eastward we may pick up some fishing craft or small coaster and hear what the weather has been there, possibly even get news of the polacca. If Miller gets here after we have left, he will guess what course we have taken. Very likely he will land a boat and learn that we have been here, and the course we took when we sailed away, and would then be guided by circumstances. At any rate, if nothing has happened to him, we are sure to meet sooner or later.”
“Do just as you think best, Captain Martyn. I most sincerely trust that there are no grounds for your uneasiness. Hitherto everything has gone well with us, and it would be terrible indeed if anything should have happened to our two friends and so many of our brave fellows.”
The day passed slowly. A look-out was kept in the top, but until the sun went down no sail was seen above the horizon. The crew shared the anxiety of their captain, and gathering in groups, discussed what could have occurred to prevent their consort arriving at the rendezvous.
“I don’t believe as the Turks have caught them,” one of the sailors said. “You won’t never gammon me into taking in such a yarn as that. I don’t believe as there is a Turk living would get the weather gauge of Lieutenant Miller. As to tempests, that is different. We don’t care for tempests one way or the other on board the schooner, but then she is a craft such as you don’t see twice in a v’yage round the world. If they had been in her I shouldn’t have felt noways uneasy; but seeing as how they are in a outlandish brig whose ways they don’t understand, it may be that if they was caught off a lee shore by a heavy gale, even the first lieutenant with our men at his back couldn’t get her out of the mess.”
“I said all along,” another sailor put in, shaking his head, “as there was bad luck coming. Three days ago I dreamed of a black cat, and everyone as knows anything knows as there ain’t nothin’ more unlucky to dream about than a black cat.”
“Surely, Bill,” another said, shaking his head gravely.
“Well, mates, it is my opinion,” Tom Burdett said gruffly, “as there is something in dreams, but in nine cases out of ten it is something as has gone afore and not what comes after. I know once when I came back from a v’yage I had written a letter to tell my old woman what time I should arrive. I reckoned to be in to dinner. Well, the coach broke down and I did not get in till nine o’clock. The old woman had made a plum-duff pretty nigh as big as my head, knowing as I was fond of it, and she was in such a taking at my not having been in to eat it at dinner that I sat down and I finished that there pudding cold for supper. Well, I dreamt of about ten million black cats and about as many sharks mixed up together, but if you will believe me nothing came of it; and ever since that I have held to the opinion that when you have a bad dream, what you have got to think about when you wake ain’t what it means in the future, but what you have been having for supper.
“Now, I expect if Bill there was to turn his mind back he would remember that the night as he had that dream, he had been filling hisself up with fruit or such like trash afore he turned in. I don’t say as nothing has happened to Lieutenant Miller and our mates, but I am cocksure as that black cat Bill said he dreamt on hadn’t nothing to do with it either way. Why, bless me, in my village there is hundreds of women as thinks of nothing but dreams and tokens. It is no matter what you dream of, they have got a ’terpretation of it, and if the ’terpretation happens to be a bad one they bother their husbands and brothers and sons, as the case may be, not to put to sea, and there is many a good fisherman whose cupboard is bare half the year, through listening to them. I may have my ideas as to whether harm are come to that polacca or not, but if every seaman on board the ship was to dream of a black tom-cat and his wife and family, it wouldn’t make not so much as a shade of difference, in my opinion.”
Martyn did not wait for daylight, but when the middle watch was relieved sail was made, and the schooner bore away to the north-east. Land was sighted about four o’clock, and by nightfall they were coasting along at the distance of about a mile. When it became dark they stood on and off the shore, as Martyn wished to examine every inlet and bay as they went on. As soon as it was daylight the schooner proceeded on her way. The sails of several craft were made out seaward during the course of the day, but none of these resembled the canvas of the polacca, and attention was concentrated upon the shore, every rock being closely scanned with glasses, and a sharp look-out kept for signals of any kind.
In the evening a small fishing-boat was overhauled as it made its way into a village. The fishermen were interrogated by Zaimes, who understood a little Turkish. They had seen nothing of any craft answering to a description of the polacca. Interrogated about the weather, they replied that the storm four days before had been an exceptionally severe one, coming on very suddenly and blowing with tremendous force for some hours.