Smellie jumped up on the rail to get a better view, and at the same moment a pistol shot rang out from the skylight, the bullet evidently flying close past him. He took not the slightest notice of the shot, but stood there on the rail with his hand shading his eyes, intently examining the object we were rapidly nearing.
“It is a brig,” said he, “and unless I am very greatly mistaken—but no, it can’t be—and yet it must be too—it surely is the Vestale.”
“It looks remarkably like her; but I can’t make out—confound those fellows! I wish they would stop firing.—I can’t make out the white ribbon round her sides,” said I.
“No, nor can I. And yet it is scarcely possible we can be mistaken. Luff you may—a little—do not shave her too close. She has no pennant flying, by the way, whoever she may be. Ah! the rascals have pinked me after all,” as a rattling volley was discharged at him through the glazed top of the skylight, and I saw him clap his hand to his side.
We were by this time close to the strange brig, on board which lights were burning in the cabin, whilst several persons were visible on deck. As we swept down toward her, hugging her pretty closely, a man sprang into the main rigging and hailed in Spanish:
“Josefa ahoy! What’s the matter on board? Why are you going to sea without a full cargo? Have matters gone wrong at the head of the creek?”
“No, no,” replied Smellie in the same language, which by the way he had been diligently studying with Antonia’s assistance during our sojourn under Don Manuel’s roof—“no, everything is all right; our cargo—”
Unfortunately he was here interrupted by another volley from the cabin, and at the same time a voice yelled from the schooner’s stern windows:
“We are captured; a prize to the accursed Ingleses.”
The words were hardly out of the speaker’s mouth when three or four muskets were popped at us from the brig, fortunately without effect. We were, however, by that time past her, and her crew, who seemed thoroughly mystified at the whole affair, made no further effort to molest us. Of one thing, however, we were amply assured, she was not the Vestale. The craft we had just passed—whilst the double of the French gun-brig in every other respect—was painted black down to her copper, and she carried under the heel of her bowsprit a life-size figure of a negress with a scarf striped in various colours round her waist. A negress? Ah! there could not be a doubt of it. “Mr Smellie,” said I, “do you know that craft?”