The young pilot was surprised at the ease with which the master of the schooner threw off his 'longshore manners and assumed the habit and language of a seafaring man. He had been a trader in a small way ever since Marcy could remember, and he said himself that the longest voyage he ever made was from some port in Cuba to New York. He had a way of going and coming at very irregular intervals. Sometimes his schooner would lie idle for months, and Beardsley would work among his negroes with so much industry and perseverance, that the planters around him would come to think he had given up the sea for good; but all on a sudden he would disappear as if by magic, and it would be a long time before any one could find out where he was or what he had been doing; and they were obliged to take his word for that. Marcy Gray was not the only one who thought that the term "smuggler" would come nearer to describing his vocation than the word "trader." But in spite of his erratic movements and long intervals of rest on shore, Captain Beardsley was a fair navigator and knew how to handle his schooner. He knew also, and quickly assumed, the dignity befitting his station, kept his quarter-deck sacred to himself, and, except when they were on duty, never permitted his crew to come aft the foremast This made a gulf between him and Marcy, but the latter did not mind that. He was content to be considered one of the crew.
Seventy hours passed, and the only thing the lookouts saw during that time to indicate that they were not alone on the ocean, was a thin cloud of smoke in the horizon, which might come from the chimneys of a peaceful passenger vessel, or from those of a cruiser on the watch for just such crafts as the Osprey was; and so Captain Beardsley prudently came about and sailed leisurely back toward the point from whence he started. This move was just what brought her first prize into the clutches of the Osprey.
Land had been out of sight for almost two days. In her eagerness to catch something the schooner had gone far beyond the highway toward which she had first shaped her course, but this retrograde movement brought her back to it. On the morning of the third day the thrilling cry "Sail ho!" came from aloft, and in an instant the deck was in commotion, the man at the wheel so far forgetting himself as to allow the privateer to swing into the wind with all her canvas flapping.
"Keep her steady, there," shouted the captain angrily. "Where away?" he continued, hailing the crosstrees.
"Broad on the weather beam. Topsail schooner, and standing straight across our course."
The captain seized a glass and hastened aloft to take a look at the stranger, while those on deck crowded to the rail and strained their eyes for a glimpse of the sail, which had not yet showed her top-hamper above the horizon. No change was made in the course of the privateer, and neither was anything done toward casting loose the guns. There would be time enough for that when the captain had made up his mind what he was going to do. He sat on the crosstrees beside the lookout for an hour without saying a word. By that time the sail was visible from the deck. To quote from one of the crew she was coming up at a hand gallop. Then Captain Beardsley was satisfied to come down and take charge of the deck.
"She's ours," Marcy heard him say to the two mates. "I would not sell my chances of making a rich haul for any reasonable sum of money. If I know anything about vessels, she is a Cuban trader bound to New York. Ease the Osprey up a bit. Don't crowd her so heavy, and the chase will pass by within half a mile of us. But we mustn't let her get by, for she is a trotter, and every inch of her muslin is drawing beautifully."
While the second mate set about obeying the last order, the captain addressed some others to the first officer, and in a remarkably brief time, considering their short experience on board the privateer, her crew had cast loose the bow gun and trained it over the port side, the magazine and shell-rooms had been opened and lighted, and Tierney, who acted in the double capacity of captain of the bow gun and drill-master to the crews of both, had driven home a five-second shrapnel.
"All ready forward, sir," said he.
"Throw that piece of canvas back over the gun to hide it," commanded
Captain Beardsley. "Send all the men below that are not needed on deck.
Gray, go aft and stand by to run up the Yankee flag when I tell you."