The hours sped on without change of any sort, except that when at length midnight arrived there was no longer any room to doubt that, since we had taken in our square canvas, and thus relieved the overdriven little hooker, we had steadily, if somewhat slowly, head-reached and weathered upon the commodore; and then, as there seemed to be no prospect of any further news from our consort that night, I went below and turned in, leaving instructions that I was to be called at once, without fail, should anything occur to render necessary my presence on deck, or should the commodore exhibit any further signals. In less than five minutes I was fast asleep.
I was awakened next morning by the loud knocking of the steward at my state-room door.
“Six bells, Mistah Grenvile, sah; and here is your coffee,” announced San Domingo, as he stood balancing the cup and saucer in his hand and swaying to the still lively movements of the schooner, although it struck me at once that she was not nearly so lively in her motions as she had been when I turned in at midnight. I raised myself in my bunk and peered through the closed scuttle that was let into the side of the ship. The little craft was still lying over far enough to cause the sea to wash up over the glass and obscure the view occasionally, but there were nevertheless intervals of quite long enough duration to enable me to note that the morning was overcast and lowering, with a decided thundery look in the sky, and that the sea had gone down very considerably while I had been lying asleep.
“Well, San Domingo,” I said, “are there any signs of the chase? And where is the commodore?”
“De chase, sah, am about four mile to wind’ard ob us, bearin’ about half a point abaft de beam, and de commodore am ’bout a mile and a half astern of us.”
“Astern of us—the commodore astern of us, did you say?” exclaimed I incredulously.
“Yes, sah,” answered the black, quite unmoved, “dead astern ob us. We hab both weadered and head-reached on him durin’ de night.”
“Has he made any signals since I came below?” asked I.
“Not dat I am aware ob,” answered the fellow. “But, if massa wish, I will go on deck and ask Mistah Simpson.”
“No, never mind,” said I. “No doubt Mr Simpson would have called me had such been the case. What canvas are we under?”