And strangely enough the next minute the Camel came smiling up to them.
“I say, laddies,” he said, “joost come for’ard as far as the galley. I don’t ask ye to come in, for, ma wud, she is hot! But just come and take a sniff as ye gang by. There’s a dinner cooking as would have satisfied the Don. I thot he meant to stay, but, puir chiel, I suppose he dinna ken what’s good.”
Chapter Thirty Eight.
A night’s excitement.
Every one seemed bent on celebrating that day as a festival. The fight was a victory, and all were rejoicing in a noisy holiday, while for some hours the crew of the schooner had their turn.
Not all, for after a few words with the skipper, the two lads went aloft with the binocular to keep a sharp look-out seaward, and more especially at the two headlands at the entrance to the bay, which they watched in the full expectation of seeing the grim grey nose of the gunboat peering round, prior to her showing her whole length and her swarthy plume of smoke.
Arrangements had been made below as well, and the schooner was swinging to a big buoy—head to sea, the sails ready for running up or dropping down from her thin yards.
“A nice land wind,” the skipper had said, “and if she came it would not be long before we were on equal terms with her.”