Chapter Fifteen.
A Brush with a Piratical Felucca.
We had not been three hours at sea before the unwelcome conviction forced itself upon us that our apprehensions respecting the injury to the Foam’s sailing powers were only too well founded; whatever they might originally have been the bungling dockyard riggers had effectually destroyed them. The breeze was blowing so strongly that we had been compelled to furl the topgallant—sail, and, steering as we were with the wind abeam, we ought, with the shapely hull we had beneath us, to have been going at least nine knots, whereas, so cramped were the little vessel’s movements by her tautly set-up rigging and the consequent rigidity of her spars, that she was going little more than six. This was anything but satisfactory; O’Flaherty’s first action, therefore, was to order a general easing-up of lanyards, fore and aft, aloft and alow; and no sooner was this done than we felt the advantage of the change; the swing and play of the spars being restored, and the rigging eased up until they were merely supported without their pliancy being interfered with, the little craft at once recovered her elasticity, and not only went along faster, but also took the seas much more buoyantly, riding lightly over them instead of digging through them as before, so that she no longer threw the spray over and over herself, but went along as light and dry as an empty bottle. But it was still evident that her top-hamper was too heavy; we therefore set the carpenter to work to reduce a couple of spare topmasts we had on board, with the view to shifting them upon the first favourable opportunity; and, this done, we hoped to have the hooker once more at her best.
Nothing of importance occurred until we arrived off the Cristo Cays, when—the time being about three bells in the forenoon watch, and the larger island bearing about two miles on the larboard bow, a couple of miles distant—O’Flaherty brought a chart on deck and, spreading it out on the companion slide, beckoned me to him.
“Look here, Lascelles,” said he, making a mark on the chart with his pencil-point, “there is where we are, and that,” pointing away over the larboard bow, “is Cristo Cay. Now, whereabouts is the channel that you saw that big felucca going into?”
“It is further on to the westward; you cannot see it from here. But why do you ask?” I inquired.
“Because, me bhoy, I intind to take a look in there and see what there is to be seen,” he replied.
“If you will excuse my saying so, I think you had better not,” said I. “In my opinion it would be wiser to meddle with these other places as little as possible until we have beaten up Merlani’s quarters. From all that we could learn from Carera his gang is far and away the most formidable all along this coast; and it seems to me that it would be only prudent on our part to create as little alarm as possible among these fellows until we have polished him off. His snuggery is strong enough and difficult enough of approach as it is, and it might be made infinitely more so if an alarm were given along the coast, as it easily might be if one of their craft happened to escape us; my advice, therefore—if you ask it—is to interfere with nobody until we have been into the Conconil lagoons.”
“Why, Lascelles, you surely are not afraid?” he asked, looking me surprisedly in the face.
“No, sir, I am not,” I answered, rather nettled, “I am only prudent; and—”