“All clear, all clear! we have just missed her, and that is all. By Jove, Hawkesley, that was a narrow squeak, eh? Why, it is surely the Vestale! Vestale ahoy!”
“Hillo!” was the response from the other craft, indubitably the brig which we had fallen in with shortly after our first look into the Congo, and which we had been given to understand was the Vestale, French gun-brig.
“Have you sighted a sail of any kind to-day?” hailed Austin.
“Non, mon Dieu! We have not nevaire seen a sail until now since we leave Sierra Leone four weeks ago.”
This ended the communication between the two ships, the Vestale—or whatever she was—disappearing again into the fog before the last words of the reply to our question had been uttered.
“Well,” said Mr Austin, as he jumped down off the gun, “I am disappointed. When I first caught sight of that craft close under our bows I thought for a moment that we had made a clever guess; that the chase had doubled on her track, and that, by a lucky accident, we had stumbled fairly upon her in the fog. But as soon as I caught sight of the white figure-head and the streak round her sides I saw that I was mistaken. Well, we may drop upon the fellow yet. I would give a ten-pound note this instant if the fog would only lift.”
“I cannot understand it for the life of me,” I replied in a dazed sort of way, as I stepped gingerly down off the gun upon which I, like the first lieutenant, had jumped in the first of the excitement.
Mr Austin looked at me questioningly.
“What is it that you cannot understand, Hawkesley?” he asked.
“That brig—the Vestale, as she calls herself—and all connected with her,” I answered.