We stood on thus for about a couple of hours after tacking, and I was seriously debating in my mind the possibility of giving the Frenchman the slip by lowering away all our canvas and then running to leeward under bare poles, my eyes resting abstractedly upon a brilliant planet broad upon our weather bow, which was just on the point of dipping below the horizon, when suddenly the said planet vanished. I took no notice of this until it as suddenly reappeared in the space of a few seconds.
“Another sail, by all that’s complicating!” I ejaculated.
“Another sail! Where away, sir?” exclaimed Hardy, who was standing between me and the helmsman.
“Just to the southward of that bright planet on the horizon, broad on our larboard bow,” said I, as I levelled my glass. “Ah! there she is. Another frigate, by the look of her—hull up, too.”
“Phew!” whistled Hardy; “that’s rather awk’ard; she may pick us out any minute. But perhaps she’s English, sir. You don’t often see two French ships so close together as this here. Can you see her pretty plain, sir?”
“Not very,” I replied. “But I fancy there’s an English look about her.”
“Let me take a squint at her, sir.”
I handed him over the glass, and he took a good long look at her. Suddenly he handed the glass back to me.
“She’s English, sir! I’ll take my oath of it!” he exclaimed. “She’s the ‘Amethyst,’ that’s what she is. I knows her by the way her fore-topmast and topgallant-mast is looking over her bows. There ain’t another ship afloat as has got such a kink in her foremast as the ‘Amethyst,’ and that’s her, sir, as sure as I’m Tom Hardy.”
“Are you quite certain?” I inquired. “Do not speak rashly because the consequences may prove serious to us. If you are positive about the matter, I will signal him and turn the tables upon our friend astern.”