“No,” returned Smellie from his post at the wheel, stooping and peering straight into the darkness. “I cannot make her out from here. Do you see her?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied joyously; “there she is, broad on our port bow. Luff, sir, you may.”
“Luff,” I heard Smellie return; and the schooner’s bows swept round until they pointed fair for the distant object. “Steady, sir!”
“Steady it is,” replied Smellie, his voice sounding weird and mournful above the roar of the wind and the wash of the sea. I managed to trim over the jib-sheet without assistance, and then leaned over the bulwarks watching the gradual way in which the small dark blot on the horizon swelled and developed into a stately ship with lofty masts, long yards, and a delicate maze of rigging all as neat and trig as though she had but just emerged from the dockyard.
The sea being quite smooth after we had once rounded Shark Point, we made the run down to the sloop in about an hour, passing to windward of her, and then jibing over and rounding-to on her lee quarter, with our jib-sheet to windward.
As we approached the sloop I noticed that lights were still burning in the skipper’s cabin, and I thought I could detect a human face or two peering curiously out at us from the ports. The dear old hooker was of course riding head to wind, and as we swept down across her bows within easy hailing distance a figure suddenly appeared standing on the knight-heads, and Armitage’s voice rang out across the water with the hail of:
“Schooner ahoy!”
“Hillo!” responded Smellie.
A slight and barely perceptible pause; and then—
“What schooner is that?”