And again, after a few words apparently with the officer with the epaulets, the trumpet was raised to his lips, and he asked, “Have you seen any vessels lately?”
The skipper was on the point of answering the hail, when his mate said, “Beg pardon, Captain Blunt, but Ben and me made out a fore-and-aft schooner airly this morning, with sweeps out, pulling in under the outermost headland there,” pointing with his horny finger as he spoke.
“Nothing, sir, but a small schooner at daylight sweeping to windward.”
“What?” came back in a clear, quick note from the corvette.
“Small fore-and-after, sir, with sails down and sweeps out, close under the land.”
In a moment two or three officers on the cruiser’s deck put their heads together, several glasses were directed toward the now dim mirage-like shadow of the island, and the next instant the sharp ring of a boatswain’s whistle was heard, followed by a gruff call of, “Away there! Ariels, away!”
Immediately a cluster of sailors, in white frocks and trowsers and straw hats, sprang over the ship’s quarter to the davits; and then with a chirruping, surging pipe, a boat fell rapidly to the water. The falls were cast off, the cutter hauled up to the gangway, and soon an officer stepped over the side and tripped down to the boat. The white blades of the oars stood up on end in a double line, the boat pushed off, the oars fell with a single splash, and she steered for the brig. Descending down into the gentle valley of the long swell, she would disappear for an instant, till nothing but the white hats and feather blades of the oars were visible; and again rising on the crest, the water flashed off in foam from her bows as she came dancing on.
In a few minutes the coxswain cried, “Way enough,” and throwing up his hand with the word “Toss,” the cutter shot swiftly alongside; the boat-hooks of the bowmen brought her up with a sudden jar, and the next moment an officer with an epaulet on his right shoulder and a sword by his side stepped over the gangway. The skipper was there to receive him, to whom he touched his cap with his fore finger; but as his eye glanced aft he saw a lady, and he gracefully removed his cap and bowed like a gentleman to her. He was a man of about eight-and-twenty, with a fine, manly, sailor-like figure and air, and with a pair of bright, determined gray eyes in his head that a rascal would not care to look into twice.
“I am the first lieutenant of the ‘Scourge,’ sir,” he said, turning to the skipper, “and if you will step this way, I’ll have a few words with you.”