“Why, my dear old chap,” cried Rodd, “you can’t see well, because of the trees, but as we get farther out, there she lies, to the left, with her two masts as plain as plain.”
“I can see those two masts you mean,” said Morny sternly, “but they are low-down raking masts; the Dagobert’s are much higher, and stand up stiffer than those. Do you forget she’s square-rigged? Why, that’s a schooner.”
“So it is,” cried Rodd. “I was deceived by the two yards on her foremast. But look here, it can’t be another schooner. Captain Chubb may have been altering her rig when he got her upright again. Why, of course! It must be so. There can’t be three schooners there. They must have had some accident to the brig’s mainmast when they raised her again. Broke her topgallant, perhaps, and rigged her fore and aft.”
“Not they, Mr Rodd, sir. Our old man would have cut a spar somewhere from the forest and rigged her square, if it was only a jury-mast. ’Sides, they’d got spare spars on board, same as we. That’s another schooner. You can see her clearer now—a long low one, with masts that rake more than the Spanish skipper’s vessel. Strikes me as we shall find that for some reason or another they haven’t got the brig afloat.”
“Another schooner, Joe?” cried Morny passionately. “The brig not finished? For some reason or another! What reason? What does it all mean?”
“Be calm, my lad; be calm,” cried the doctor. “In a very little while we shall know the worst, or the best. Mind, we know nothing as yet. It is all suspicion. For aught we can say to the contrary, that man whom we have condemned may be innocent, misjudged by us, and now be lying at the bottom of the river where we missed him in that mysterious way.”
Morny bowed his head and tried to look gratefully at the doctor; but his agony was too great, and he stood there till their boat had got to the end of its tack and swung round in the other direction, when with shaded eyes he gazed before him wildly, trying to get a view beyond where the three schooners could now be plainly seen, anchored in mid-stream.
But for some time the curvature of the river put this out of the question, and to break the painful silence the doctor said quietly—
“Another long low schooner, with raking masts. But it may be only another trader, anchored in company with the rest.”
“Ah,” cried Morny to Joe Cross, “you see something more than we do!” For the man, who was looking out from beyond the sail, suddenly gave a start and angrily slapped his thigh.