From time to time the first cutter, in obedience to the captain’s orders, ran forward from where she was sailing astern—the second cutter swinging now from the davits—crept up alongside of the lugger, and communicated with her skipper; and Murray’s doubts grew more faint, for everything the American said sounded plausible.
The night was far spent when another of these visits was paid, and as the coxswain hooked on alongside of the lugger the American leaned over to speak to the lieutenant, but turned first to Murray. “Well, young mister,” he said; “sleepy?”
“No, not at all,” was the reply. “Good boy; that’s right; but if your skipper hadn’t been so tarnation ’spicious yew might have had a good snooze. Wall, lieutenant, I was just waiting to see you, and I didn’t want to hail for fear our slave-hunting friend might be on his deck and hear us. Talk about your skipper being ’spicious, he’s nothing to him. The way in which the sound of a shout travels along the top of the water here’s just wonderful, and my hail might spyle the hull business.”
“But we’re not so near as that?” asked the lieutenant.
“Ain’t we? But we jest are! See that there bit of a glimpse of the mountains straight below the moon?”
“Yes,” said the lieutenant; “but I should have taken it for a cloud if you had not spoken.”
“That’s it,” said the skipper; “that’s where the river winds round at the foot, and the quieter yewr people keep now the better. Oh yes, yewr skipper has knocked all my calc’lations on the head, I can tell yew. That there sloop sails A1, and she’s done much more than I ’spected.”
“I’m glad of it,” said the lieutenant, while Murray’s spirits rose.
“So’m I,” said the man, with a chuckle; “and now it’s turned out all right I don’t mind ’fessing.”
“Confessing! What about?”