The mate straightway went forward, and, after a few pokes about the lee waist, Ben was roused out from under the jolly-boat and came rolling aft.
“You saw the schooner, eh?” said the lieutenant, as if he was in the habit of asking sharp questions and getting quick answers.
“Yes, sir,” said the squat seaman, as he hitched up his knife-belt, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and took off his cap.
“Where?”
“Here away, sir,” with a wave of his paw, “just clear of that bluff foreland where the gap opens with the Blue Mountain.”
“How was she rigged?”
“Bare sticks, sir, not much of a bowsprit, and no sail spread. I see her first by the flash of her sweeps in the rising sun, as she was heading about sou’-sou’-east into the land.”
“Two masts, you say?”
“Ay, sir; but I thought as ’ow there was a jigger-like yard a-sticking out over her starn, though I wasn’t sartin.”
“So!” said the lieutenant, in a musing tone, and with rather a grave face and compressed lip; “that will do; thank you, my man.” Then placing his hand on the skipper’s shoulder, he drew him to one side, out of ear-shot, and said,