“All plain sail, to de royal, sah.”
“Very well, that will do,” said I, taking the cup and draining it. “Find me my bath towel, San Domingo, and then you may go.”
A minute later I was on deck, still in my sleeping rig, and looking about me. The weather was pretty much as I had judged it to be from the glimpse that I had caught through my state-room port. As San Domingo had said, the Doña Inez was about a mile and a half so dead astern of us that her two masts were in one, while, in the precise position which the negro had indicated, there lay a fine, spanking brigantine thrashing along under a perfect cloud of canvas to her royal, which, by the way, appeared to have as much hoist, and nearly as much canvas on it, as our topsail.
“Nothing to report, sir,” said Simpson, coming up to me as I emerged from the companion. “We made out the chase about two bells this morning; but I did not call you, sir, as she showed no signs of shiftin’ her helm. And the commodore haven’t said a word all night. I reckon he’ll be a bit surprised when he sees where we are.”
“To tell you the truth, Simpson, I am ‘a bit surprised’ myself,” said I. “She is a wonderful little craft to have beaten the Inez as she has done, and that, too, in a strong breeze.” And, turning away, I went forward and took my usual salt-water bath.
“Now,” I meditated, as I took up a position beneath the spout of the head-pump, and signed to the man in charge to get to work, “the rule in chasing when one is abreast, but to the leeward of the chase, is to tack. I don’t like to tack without instructions from my superior officer, because I don’t know what his plans may be, and he may have some scheme of his own for the circumventing of our friend yonder; but if I do not hear anything from him by the time that I am ready to go below and dress I will just take the small liberty of asking for instructions. For of course the brigantine is quite aware by this time that the brig and we are running in couples, therefore there need be no further squeamishness on my part as to an interchange of signals between the brig and myself.”
My douche at an end, I walked aft again, and, pausing at the head of the companion ladder, said to Simpson:
“Mr Simpson, be good enough to get out the flags and—”
The carpenter was balancing himself upon the dancing deck as I spoke, with the telescope at his eye, looking at the brig, and I had got so far in my speech when he interrupted me with the exclamation:
“Signal from the commodore, sir!”