As the orange light spread north and south from the point at which it had originated, at the same time reaching upward from the horizon, the bank blink began to fade, or rather to become merged in and overpowered by it; and the shapes of the heavy, lowering clouds that overhung us began to reveal themselves, their lower edges here and there suddenly flushing into hues of the richest yet most delicate rose that rapidly strengthened first into scarlet and then to burning gold as the rays of the yet unrisen sun smote upon them. Presently, in the midst of the rich orange light that was now flashing up on the eastern and north-eastern horizon, there emerged a shape of indigo, practically flat-topped, but with two small protuberances, one at each end, which, by a stretch of the imagination, might be termed hills, rising to a height of perhaps sixty or seventy feet. This was the island of West Caycos, the most westerly of the cays on the bank, and ten minutes later we were under its lee and within less than a cable’s length from the beach.
But what a change had taken place in the aspect of sea and sky during those ten minutes! As we stood, spellbound, watching the gorgeous changes of colour that were taking place along the eastern horizon, a broad ray of white light, the edges slightly tinged with violet, suddenly shot vertically aloft from the horizon, piercing the cloud-masses as though with the thrust of a spear; and as though there had been magic in the touch those cloud-masses at once began to break up and melt away, assuming, ere they vanished, every conceivable tint of the rainbow, from the deepest and richest hue of purple, through crimson and scarlet, to purest molten gold. And while these wonderful changes of colour were taking place, shaft after shaft of living, quivering light flashed into the sky, radiating like the spokes of a wheel against the warm primrose tints of the horizon—merging by imperceptible degrees into the pure, delicate azure of the sky revealed by the breaking up and dissolution of the clouds—to be followed, a few seconds later, by the appearance above the horizon of a great rim of blazing, palpitating golden fire, the level rays from which shot along the tumbling surface of the ocean, splashing it with a million scintillating points of dazzling light, as the crests of the tiny wavelets curled over and broke under the whipping of the freshening breeze. Then, while we still stood watching, a gauzy veil of rain—“the pride of the morning”—swept down upon us, blotting out the glories of the sunrise for a brief minute or two, then driving away to leeward, leaving our sails and deck dark with wet, and revealing the sun, now fully risen, and the sky clear and pure to windward.
With the freshening of the breeze we rapidly brought West Caycos first abeam and then on our weather quarter, while the high land of Providenciales grew upon the weather-bow. Here we were very nearly getting into an exceedingly awkward scrape, for while I went below to prepare for my morning bath under the head-pump, after witnessing the magnificent sunrise that I have endeavoured to describe, the wind suddenly fell light and died away; and then, while I was dressing after my bath, the sea-breeze suddenly sprang up, blowing half a gale; and there were we, not three miles from the land, with as dangerous a stretch of lee-shore as is to be found in all this region abeam of us. Fortunately the schooner’s extraordinary weatherliness stood us in good stead, and enabled us to claw off, but for which we should probably have left her bones, if not our own, there. Our mid-afternoon observations showed us to be in latitude 22 degrees 21 minutes North, and longitude 71 degrees 57 minutes West, which position I considered far enough out for our purpose; we therefore hove about and, under short canvas, proceeded to work our way slowly to the southward and eastward, on the lookout for anything that might chance to come our way.
For several days after this nothing of moment occurred. Finally we found ourselves some two hundred miles to the northward and eastward of the Mona Passage, and I was debating within myself whether to bear up and go back over the ground which I had just traversed, or to continue on and have a look at Porto Rico. But while I was thinking over the question, the lookout in the fore crosstrees reported a sail to windward, quickly succeeded by several others, whereupon we made sail and shaped a course that would enable us to get a somewhat clearer view of them, and, if necessary, to intercept them.
The lookout aloft soon reported that the leading ship was under short canvas, while those which immediately followed her were covered to their trucks, and showing studdingsails as well, from which piece of information it was not difficult for me to guess that the strangers to windward consisted of a convoy of merchantmen, with its escort of men-o’-war. This conjecture of mine soon proved to be correct, for within half-an-hour of their first appearance the leading ships were in sight from the deck, and we made out the biggest of them to be a 74-gun ship, the others in sight obviously being merchantmen. As we closed, with ensign and pennant hoisted, the commodore signalled me to come alongside and send a boat aboard, which I did, going in the boat myself to see what news I could pick up. I thus learned that the ship I had boarded was the Goliath, the captain of which was the commodore of the squadron of convoying ships, consisting of—in addition to the Goliath—the frigates Tourmaline and Spartiate, and the gun-brigs Vulcan, Wolverine, Spitfire, and Tortoise; the convoy consisting of three hundred and eighty-seven sail of all sorts, bound to the various West Indian ports. I informed the commodore of the nature of the duty upon which I had been sent out by the Admiral on the station, and inquired whether any suspicious craft had been sighted during the passage; to which he grimly replied in the affirmative, but added that they had all been accounted for, and would be found, with prize-crews aboard them, in the main body of the fleet. I stayed on board the seventy-four for a couple of hours, gathering what news the inmates of the ward-room could give me; during which the Wasp, under boom-foresail and fore-staysail only, easily kept company with the ponderous two-decker, looking in comparison with her “no bigger as my thumb,” as the negroes would say. She excited a great deal of curiosity, on account of her very peculiar model, and likewise a very considerable amount of admiration as she swept along lightly and buoyantly as a seagull over the long undulations of the heavy swell that was running. It was the first time that I had ever beheld her under sail, from outside her own bulwarks, and although, looked down upon from the lofty poop of the Goliath, she seemed to be the merest cockle-shell, small enough to be hoisted inboard and stowed upon the two-decker’s main hatch, there was still a look of staunchness about her that, coupled with the beauty of her form and the rakish sauciness of her entire appearance, made me feel very proud of the fact that I commanded her, as well as very anxious for an opportunity to show of what she and her crew were capable.
Having extracted all the information I could obtain—which, after all, was not very much—I made my adieux, descended the side, stepped into my boat, and returned to the schooner. Upon rejoining her, we made sail and hauled to the wind, in the hope of finding some picarooning craft hanging on to the skirts of the convoy; but although we hovered in the wake of the latter until the very last of them had disappeared beneath the southern horizon, our hopes were vain; and, finally, I decided to bear up for the Navidad, or Ship Bank, proceed through the Sea of Hayti as far as the entrance of the Windward Channel, and then, if still unsuccessful in my search for traces of the pirate, to work my way back to the Atlantic by the Crooked Island Passage, exploring some of the cays in Austral Bay on the way, they seeming to me to afford considerable facilities for the establishment of a pirate depot.