“All right, colonel; don’t you trouble about that,” was the reply. “Only say what you want, and it shall be done; and if anybody tries to interfere with you, just point ’em out to me, that’s all.”
“Very well,” returned Lance. “Then I shall consider that a bargain; and now I will wish you good-night, as I think there will be rain shortly, and I’ve no particular fancy for a drenching unless it comes in the way of duty.”
The following morning dawned bright and fair, the thunder-storm of the preceding night having broken and raged furiously for a couple of hours soon after our friends left the deck, and then cleared completely away. When Captain Staunton went on deck he found a fine breeze blowing once more from the westward, and the brig dashing along at a slashing pace under topgallant-sails, with her nose pointing to the northward. The air was clear and transparent; not a cloud flecked the deep blue of the sky overhead; and a man, who had shinned aloft at Johnson’s orders as far as the main truck, was just in the act of reporting that there was nothing anywhere in sight. So that any lingering hopes which Captain Staunton may have entertained as to the possibility of the frigate rediscovering them were speedily dashed to the ground.
The fine weather lasted; and three days afterwards, about two o’clock in the afternoon, the look-out aloft reported, “Land ho! right ahead!”
“What is it like?” hailed Johnson from his seat on the skylight.
“It’s Look-out Peak, sir; I can make out the shape of it quite well.”
“That’s all right,” returned Johnson. “Stay where you are, and let me know if you see anything like a signal.”
In a couple of hours more the land was distinctly visible from the deck, the peak spoken of as “Look-out Peak” appearing first, and then the land on each side of it, rising gradually above the ocean’s brim until it lay stretched along the horizon for a length of some half a dozen miles. As they drew in towards the island, our friends (all of whom, excepting the ladies, were on deck) half expected to be sent below in order that they might not become acquainted with the navigation of the harbour-entrance; but this idea did not appear to have presented itself to Johnson, who, on the contrary, joined the group, and began chatting with them in what was evidently meant to be understood as an affable manner.
When they had approached within a mile of the place, the pirate skipper turned to Lance and asked him what he thought of the harbour, and whether he believed he could make it tolerably safe with a dozen guns or so.
“Harbour!” answered Lance, “I see no harbour,—no sign even of one on that part of the coast which we are now approaching. I can distinguish nothing but a rocky shore, against which the surf is breaking heavily enough to dash to pieces the strongest ship that was ever built. Perhaps