Considerable difficulty was experienced in obtaining a crew for the brig, good men being scarce; but at last this was overcome, and on a bright September morning the anchor was hove up, and the Virginie started upon her cruise. The shoals outside the harbour were cleared in due time, the brig working like a top, and sailing like a witch, to the unbounded delight of all hands; and then George hauled sharp up on the port tack, his intention being to cruise for a few days in the Windward and Caycos Passages before shaping a course for home.
For the first five days of their cruise they were singularly unlucky, seeing nothing but a man-o’-war schooner, which, on speaking, they found had been equally as unfortunate as themselves.
On the morning of the sixth day, however, being then in the neighbourhood of the Hogsties, the lookout aloft reported at daybreak a couple of sail dead to windward, hove-to close together. On the usual inquiries being made, the lookout further reported that one of the strangers was a barque; the rig of the other, which happened to be lying end-on, he could not clearly make out, but, from her size, he judged her to be a ship. Mr Bowen, whose watch it was, at once went below and informed George of this circumstance, and then, leaving him to don the most indispensable portions of his attire, returned to the deck, and proceeded thence aloft to have a look at the strangers for himself.
By the time that he had seen all that it was then possible to see, and had descended again to the deck, George was awaiting him there.
“Well, Bowen, what do you make of them?” was Leicester’s first inquiry.
“Well, there’s two of ’em there, sure enough, close together—a good deal too close together to be up to any good, to my thinking,” was the reply.
“What do you think they are, then?” asked George.
“One of ’em is a privateer—or a pirate; and t’other is her prize, in my opinion,” answered Bowen.
“Then we’ll make their further acquaintance,” said George. “Perhaps if we trim the canvas a bit slovenly, and act as though we had not seen these craft, we may coax down towards us the privateer, or whatever she is.”
“That’ll be the best plan, no doubt,” acquiesced the chief mate; and he proceeded forthwith on a tour round the decks, easing up a brace here, and a halliard there, with a touch also at the sheets and bowlines, by way of insuring an agreeable and harmonious result. When he had finished, the brig looked like a collier, and her speed had decreased from eight to a little over five knots.