“Of course you would,” said the captain, with a grim smile. “Now, don’t you pretend again that you aren’t a sailor, because that was spoken like a good first mate. But we will wait for a lull before we let go, for I don’t want to lose no tackle. But the gale aren’t over yet.”
“But we are safe, captain?” said the boy.
“Yes,” grunted the captain. “Better off than them yonder,” and he pointed to a good-sized vessel which had been running for the harbour, but in vain, for she had been carried on too far and was swept away, to take the shore a mile distant.
The lull foretold by Captain Chubb enabled him to slip from his moorings and get the schooner into a sheltered position which he deemed sufficiently snug and far enough away from the brig, whose captain did not manifest any intention of coming farther in.
As they were parting company Rodd was standing right forward close to Cross, who stood spelling out the name of the brig they were leaving behind.
“Jenny de Arc” he grunted to Rodd. “That’s a rum name for a smart brig like that. Wonder what she is. I never see’d Jenny spelt like that afore. That’s the French way of doing it, I suppose.”
Rodd took upon himself to explain whose name the brig bore, and the sailor gave vent to a musical growl.
“Shouldn’t have knowed it,” he said; “but as I was a-saying, I wonder what she is. Looks to me like what they calls a private ear.”
“Why, that’s a man-of-war, isn’t it, Joe?”
“Well, a kind of a sort of one, you know, sir. One of them as goes off in war times to hark in private for any bit of news about well-laden merchantmen, and then goes off to capture them.”