Frugal as it was, it was a sumptuous banquet compared with their late fare; and the poor famished creatures devoured it ravenously, feeling, when it was finished, that they could have disposed of thrice as much. Perhaps it was just as well that there was no more; in their condition a moderately full meal even would have proved injurious to them if administered without great caution; but while there was not sufficient to provoke hurtful results there was just enough to put new life into them, and to temporarily endow them with vigour and strength enough for an hour or two’s toil at the oars.
The meal over, the oars were eagerly manned; and the men dividing themselves into two gangs, and working in short spells of a quarter of an hour each, the launch was headed straight for the stranger, which having now lost steerage-way had swung broadside-on, and showed herself to be a small brig.
“I tell you what it is, Bowles,” said the captain as he sat at the tiller steering during one of his spells of rest from the oars, “we are a great deal further to the westward than I imagined we were. We must be not very far from the outlying islands of that vast archipelago which spreads itself over so many hundreds of leagues of the South Pacific. That fellow is no whaler; look at his canvas, no smoke stains from the try-works there: he is a sandal-wood trader, or is after bêche-de-mer. I am very glad it is so; it will be much more pleasant for the ladies; and if she is a Yankee, as a good many of these little traders are, the skipper will probably be glad enough to earn a few dollars by running us all across to the mainland.”
“To my mind,” remarked Bowles, “the craft looks rather too trim and neat aloft for a trader. And look at the hoist of her topsails; don’t you think there is a man-o’-war-ish appearance about the cut and set of them sails, sir?”
“She certainly does look rather taunt in her spars for a merchantman,” returned Captain Staunton. “We shall soon see what she really is, however; for she will be hull-up in another five minutes; and in another half-hour we shall be on board her. Ah! they have made us out; there go her colours. Take the glass, and see what you can make of them, Bowles.”
The chief mate took the telescope and levelled it at the brig, taking a long and steady look at her.
“A ten-gun brig, by the look of her,” he presently remarked, with the telescope still at his eye. “Anyhow, her bulwarks are pierced; and I can see the muzzles of five bull-dogs grinning through her starboard port-holes. That’s the stars and stripes hanging at her peak, as far as I can make out; but it’s drooping so dead that I can see nothing but a mingling of red and white, with a small patch of blue next the halliard-block. She’s a pretty-looking little thing enough, and her skipper’s a thorough seaman, whoever he is. Ay, she’s a man-o’-war sure enough—Up go the courses and down comes the jib, all at once, man-o’-war fashion. And there’s clue up royals and t’gallan’s’ls—to prevent ’em from beating themselves to pieces against the spars and rigging, that is, for all the canvas she could set wouldn’t give her steerage-way, much less cause her to run away from us. She hasn’t a pennant aloft, though—wonder how that is? And the hands on board seem to be a rum-looking lot of chaps as ever I set eyes on; no more like man-o’-war’s men than we are—not a single jersey or man-o’-war collar among ’em; nor nothing like a uniform aft there. I s’pose they’re economical, and want to save their regular rig for harbour service.”
“Well, thank God for His mercy in directing us to her,” exclaimed the skipper fervently, as he lifted his cap from his head. “Our troubles are all over now, ladies,” he continued, turning to the women, who were now eagerly watching the brig. “The craft is small; but she is plenty big enough to carry us all to Valparaiso; and, once there, I think we shall have very little difficulty in getting a passage home.”
Half an hour more of toilsome tugging at the oars, and the heavy launch ranged up alongside the brig.
“Look out for a rope,” shouted one of the crew, as he sprang upon the rail with a coil of line in his hand.