The little old man talked fast, almost wildly,—it was a way he had,—and gesticulated much.
“What do I know?” he cried; “why, this,—she is a Spaniard, and a thief. She came into Lerwick two weeks before you, took stores on board, sailed in the night, and paid nobody. She is armed to the teeth, and in my opinion is after you. Keep away from her, keep away, keep away.”
“But how could she be after us?” asked McBain, incredulous.
“How? ha! ha!” laughed Magnus; “you speak like a child. She herself sailed from Inverness to Lerwick: she’d heard of you, a gentleman’s yacht, with everything good on board. She couldn’t tackle you near shore, but out here on the high sea, ha! ha! the case in different.”
“There is something in what Magnus says,” said McBain. “Let us go on deck. Hoist the flag, Mr Stevenson.”
Up went the roll of bunting, one touch to the lanyard, and out on the breeze floated the red ensign of England.
(The white ensign is flown by the Royal Navy only, the blue by the Naval Reserve, the red by merchantmen and others.)
The Spaniard was hardly a mile to windward, a long, low, rakish craft, as black as a Mother Carey’s chicken. She had ports as if for guns; and though there was no answering signal, she was seen to alter her course and bear down on the Snowbird.
“She’s too like a hawk to be honest,” said McBain, “and too big for us to fight. We’ll try how she can sail; keep her away, Stevenson.”
The Snowbird began to pay off, but not before a white puff of smoke was seen rising from the stranger’s bows. Next moment down the wind came a cannon’s roar, and a shot ricocheted past the bows of the yacht.