“Can’t see much,” said Rodd, “for the rain, but she seems beautifully rigged.”
“Yes, sir, and she can sail well too—for a brig—but I should set her down as being too heavily sparred, and likely to be top-heavy. If she was going along full sail, and was caught in such a squall as we had yesterday, and laid flat like the schooner, I don’t believe she’d lift again. Anyhow, I shouldn’t like to be aboard.”
“No, it wouldn’t be pleasant,” said Rodd; “but I say, I can’t see anything of that long gun you talked about.”
“No wonder, sir. You want that there long water-glass, as you called it—that there one you showed me as you was unpacking it. Don’t you remember? Like a big pipe with panes of glass in it as you said you could stick down into the sea and make out what was on the bottom. You want that now.”
The man passed his hand along the brow edge of his sou’-wester to sweep away the drops, and then took a long look at the deck of the brig.
“No, sir; can’t make it out now; but I see it plainly enough this morning, covered with a lashed down tarpaulin as if to hide it, and I knew at once. I can almost tell a big gun by the smell—I mean feel it like, if it’s there.”
“But do you still think she’s a privateer?”
“Well, I don’t say she is, sir, for that’s a thing you can’t tell for sartain unless you see a ship’s papers; but she is something of that kind, I should say, and— Ay, ay, sir!—There’s the skipper hailed me, sir. I say, Mr Rodd, sir, do mind you don’t get wet!”
This was as the man rolled away sailor fashion, and emitting a crackling whishing sound as he made for the vessel’s bows, where he received some order from his captain which sent him to the covered-in hatchway of the forecastle, where he slowly disappeared into a kind of haze, half water, half smoke, for several of the water-bound crew had given up the chewing of their tobacco to indulge in pipes.
But Rodd was in a talkative humour, and made his way to the skipper, saluting him with—