“No, sir; gaining upon her, I think.”
“So do I—think, Mr Murray,” said the lieutenant shortly, “but I’m not sure. Ah, she’s changing her course,” he added excitedly, “and we shall lose her. Oh, these luggers, these luggers! How they can skim over the waves! Here, marines,” he said sharply, as he turned to a couple of the rifle-armed men who sat in the stern sheets, “be ready to send a shot through the lugger’s foresail if I give the order; the skipper may understand what I mean.” And the speaker, sat frowning heavily at the lightly-built lugger they were following. “I don’t see what more I can do, Mr Murray.”
“No, sir,” said the midshipman hoarsely. “Oh, give the order, sir—pray do! We mustn’t lose that boat.”
“Fire!” said the lieutenant sharply; and one marine’s rifle cracked, while as the smoke rose lightly in the air Murray uttered a low cry of exultation.
“Right through the foresail, sir, and the skipper knows what we mean.”
“Yes, capital! Good shot, marine.”
The man’s face shone with pleasure as he thrust in a fresh cartridge before ramming it down, and the crew looked as if they were panting to give out a loud cheer at the success of the lieutenant’s manoeuvre, for the little lugger, which was just beginning to creep away from them after a change in her course, now obeyed a touch of her helm and bore round into the wind till the big lug sails shivered and she gradually settled down to rock softly upon the long heaving swell that swept in landward.
As the cutter neared, Murray noted that the strange boat was manned by a little crew of keen-looking blacks, not the heavy, protuberant-lipped, flat-nosed, West Coast “niggers,” but men of the fierce-looking tribes who seem to have come from the east in the course of ages and have preserved somewhat of the Arabic type and its keen, sharp intelligence of expression.
But the midshipman had not much time for observation of the little crew, his attention being taken up directly by the dramatic-looking entrance upon the scene of one who was apparently the skipper or owner of the lugger, and who had evidently been having a nap in the shade cast by the aft lugsail, and been awakened by the shot to give the order which had thrown the lugger up into the wind.
He surprised both the lieutenant and Murray as he popped into sight to seize the side of his swift little vessel and lean over towards the approaching cutter, as, snatching off his wide white Panama hat, he passed one duck-covered white arm across his yellowish-looking hairless face and shouted fiercely and in a peculiar twang—