“No one ain’t going to tell on you, Tommy,” said Billy Waters reprovingly; for the big sailor had looked defiantly round, and ended by staring him defiantly in the face. “We all wishes as the young chap could be found, and that he was back aboard; and I think as it ought to be all reported and another expedition sent.”
There was a growl of approval at this as there had been before when similar ideas were promulgated; but the lieutenant sat in his cabin, and nothing was done.
The lights were burning brightly, and as it was a dead calm the anchor had been let go, so that the cutter should not be swept along the coast by the racing tide. The night had come on very dark since the moon had set, and the watch scanned the surface of the sea in an idle mood, that task being soon done, for there was very little sea visible to scan, and, coming to the conclusion that it was a night when they would be able to watch just as well with their ears, they made themselves comfortable and gazed longingly at the shore.
There was nothing to tempt them there but that it was shore, and they would have preferred being there to loitering on shipboard, though there was not so much as a cottage light to be seen from where they lay.
A large lugger propelled by a dozen sweeps passed them in the darkness, but so silently that they did not hear so much as the splash of an oar, and a drowsy feeling seemed to pervade the whole crew.
“I’ll be bound to say if we was to set up a song with a good rattling chorus he’d kick up a row,” said Billy Waters, getting up from where he was seated upon the deck, going to the side, and leaning over. “For my part I’d—Hullo! Lookye here, Jack Brown; what do you make of them there lights?”
He pointed as he spoke to a couple of dim stars high up on the cliff and placed diagonally.
“Signal,” said the boatswain decidedly.
“For us?” said Tom Tully.
“No,” said the gunner; “for some smuggling craft. Beg pardon, your honour,” he continued as the lieutenant came forward, “but what do you make o’ them there lights?”