In another minute the Champlain was hove up with the brine frothing about her, and there was no mistaking the object that moved out into the dying light from the contracting horizon. A smear of smoke hung about it, and for a second or two the dim slanted shape was outlined against a flicker of saffron. Then it and the radiance faded out together, and the lads stared at the empty waters wondering if they had been a prey to a disordered fancy. Others had seen it, however, for already a man hung out from the hoops half-way up the mainmast.
"The American, sure!" he said.
Jordan, who signed to him to go higher, sat down on the house, and his face was anxious as he glanced at the men who gathered about him.
"I don't know quite whether he's on his way to St. Michael's or looking for us, but I figure he can't have seen us yet," he said. "She was steaming fast?"
"'Bout as hard as they could shove her along, by the drift of her smoke," said the man, who now stood on the jaws of the gaff.
"Well," said Jordan, "we'll see what he's after when she heaves in sight again. Let her fall off a point or two. Slack up your sheets."
The Champlain swung off a little towards the land, and Appleby fancied he understood the manoeuvre because it is one thing to see a vessel against the horizon, and quite another to make her out when grey rocks, round which vapours crawl, lie close behind her. Still, that reef-girt shore swept by the filmy whiteness of the surf did not look inviting.
For ten minutes or thereabouts they waited in silence, Stickine looking straight before him with his hands upon the wheel, Jordan sitting apparently quite unconcerned upon the house, while the men hung about the rail. Then the low, black shape of the gunboat crept out of the haze again, and the smoke cloud at her funnel showed she was steaming her fastest. Jordan turned his head and watched her in silence for several minutes.
"She's coming up with us fast, and we're going along," he said. "I guess we'll have the topsails on her as soon as you can get them. Tell Donovitch I want him. Stickine, you can give Charley the wheel."
In a minute or two the topsails were aloft and the Champlain sailing very fast, swinging her lee-rail down into the swirling froth when she rolled. The steamer, however, was closing with her rapidly, while there was only a desolation of reefs and foam under their lee. It seemed there was no escape for them, but Jordan was still sitting quietly on the house tracing something upon it with his finger, while the Indian nodded as he watched him, and now and then a grim smile crept into the face of Stickine. Appleby, however, found the silence was growing almost insupportable and walked up to Montreal.