As the swift, tropical night shut down upon us every eye in the ship became strained to its utmost power in the effort to keep sight of the chase, for now that there could no longer be any doubt in the minds of her people that we were after them, we felt convinced that should an opportunity present itself for them to elude us in the darkness they would assuredly embrace it; and, being new to the coast and to the service, as most of us were, we had yet to learn by vexatious experience the fertility of resource which had been developed in the slave-trafficking fraternity by the unflagging pursuit to which they were subjected by the slave-squadron, and of which they never missed a chance to avail themselves. We had heard many an amusing story of the extraordinarily clever devices that these gentry had resorted to—very often successfully—in their endeavours to elude pursuit, and while we had laughed heartily at the recital of them, or commented admiringly upon their ingenuity, as the case might be, we had no fancy for further illustrating in our own persons their superiority in the art of mystification. And we were rendered all the more anxious by the fact that with nightfall the sky became overspread with a thin canopy of cloud that, while not sufficiently dense to wholly obscure the stars, so dimmed their lustre that it became difficult to distinguish, even through our night-glasses, the forms of the waves at a greater distance than half-a-mile; while as for the chase, we were at length reluctantly compelled to admit to each other that we had lost sight of her altogether, or at least that we could not be absolutely certain whether we could still see her or not; sometimes we were confident that we could, at other times we utterly failed to make her out.
It was while we were in this painful condition of uncertainty that Ryan—who like myself had remained on deck, diligently working away with his glass, and utterly deaf to the more than once repeated statement of the steward that the dinner was on the cabin table—turned quickly to me and said—
“Do you see that greenish-looking star just glimmering through the clouds right over our jib-boom end? Here, stand exactly where I am, and when she pitches you will see it showing about ten degrees above the horizon. There! do you see the star I mean?”
“Yes,” said I, catching sight of the pale green glimmer as he placed me in position. “Yes, I see it. What of it?”
“Just carry your eye from it down to the horizon at an angle of about forty-five degrees in an easterly direction, and tell me if you see anything particular.”
I did so, and after two or three attempts thought I caught a faint gleam like the light of a lamp shining through a red curtain.
“Yes,” I answered, “I fancy I can just make out a dim something.” And I described what I saw.
“Precisely!” exclaimed Ryan delightedly. “There! now I have it in my glass—no, it is gone again—this jump of a sea renders it almost impossible to use one’s telescope on the deck of such a lively little hooker as this—not that I’ve a word to say against her, God bless her, she’s a beauty, every inch of her, but I wish she’d remain steady for a second or two. There, I have it again! Yes, it’s a light in the barque’s after-cabin. They’ve drawn the curtains, never suspecting that the light would show through. Yes, there’s no mistake about it, I can see it quite plainly now; upon my word I believe we are overhauling her now that the breeze has dropped a bit. Mr Pierrepoint, d’ye see that light?”
“Where away, sir?”
It was pointed out to the lad, and after some searching and prying—for it was so very dim that it was almost impossible to distinguish it with the naked eye—he caught sight of it.