At the same moment the “Rosalie’s” gig came bounding like a bubble over the water with the tall gentleman beside the young commander in the stern-sheets. There was a great, nervous, bony hand now holding his, but with as an affectionate pressure as the soft dimpled fingers he himself had held the night before. Gig not steered at all wild now, but going as straight as a bullet to the schooner.
The stirring sounds of the fifes as the sailors danced round with the bars in the capstans, with a beating step to keep time to the lively music, were still heard on board the frigate, and then came from the forecastle,
“The anchor’s under foot, sir!”
“Pawl the capstan! Aloft, sail-loosers! Trice up! Lay out! Loose away!” Almost at the instant came down the squeaks from aloft of, “All ready with the fore! the main! the mizzen!” “Let fall––sheet home! hoist away the top-sails!”
Again were heard the quick notes of the fifes on both decks, and in less than five minutes more the anchors were catted, and the “Monongahela,” under a cloud of canvas, began to move.
But where was the “Rosalie,” late “Perdita,” all this time? Why, there she goes, with never a tack, through the narrow strait, lying over under the press of her white dimity like a witch on a black broomstick, as she shoots out to sea.
And who is that tall man, on that narrow deck, clapping on to sheet and tackle, though there was no need of assistance, or skill, or seamanship to be displayed on board that craft, except by way of love of the thing? And why does he, during a pause when there was nothing more that could possibly be done, stand by the weather rail, shaking a great huge old seaman by both hands till he almost jarred the schooner to her keel?––Ben Brown, the helmsman, whom you have heard of on board the “Martha Blunt,” who, by some accidental word he dropped near to the tall gentleman, caused that hand-grasping collision.
It was not another five minutes before the other thirty-nine old sea-dogs knew all about every body, and where they were bound, 276 and so on. They did not care a brass button for the thousand silver dollars they were to have from the tall gentleman––not they! They wanted merely to lay their eyes along that Long Tom amidships, and to have a cutlass flashing over their shoulders––so fashion! Pistols and pikes! Fudge!
But where was the “Martha Blunt?” Oh, that old teak brig was bouncing along past Morant Point, with a good slant from the southward, pretty much where she was some seventeen years before, with a few more passengers in her deck cabin, reading their Bibles, and praying for those who go down to the sea in ships on that Sabbath day––one looking with her sad eyes out of the stern windows, and another doing the same, and both thinking of the same boy who had been dashed out of one of those windows; and though both of them knew the other’s thoughts, yet they did not dream they were thinking of the same person at the time.
And where was the Spanish brigantine, with the exacting capitano––who was a slaver in dull times––and his pleasant mate, who would think no more of sticking a knife into you than he did of kicking that skulking, icy-eyed sailor on board––detesting as he did the entire Saxon race ever since Cadiz was bombarded––and feeding him on rotten jerked beef? There were no prayers, only curses, on board that brigantine as she dropped anchor in St. Jago that fine Sunday morning.