A few moments later I was in the saddle, trotting slowly off, while behind me fluttered their handkerchiefs, waving good-bye.
Rock Hall lies on a bluff, looking out across the bay. To the southward lies the Isle of Kent, with its fertile fields of waving grain, and off there on the horizon the greenish ribbon near the sky line tells where the hills of Anne Arundel lay.
Down below, under the bluff, lay a long, slender boat, shaped like a canoe, but much larger, stouter, stronger, and far swifter, when the wind filled its sails and carried it like a bird skimming over the waters.
"An English man-of-war is lying off the Isle of Kent now," said the old waterman in answer to my question, "but we can walk all around her in this boat."
"Then we will start immediately," I replied, and placing my things on board we were soon under way.
The wind caught our sails; we stood out into the bay gloriously, and she fairly flew through the water. As we rounded the Isle of Kent we saw, lying almost in our track, the English man-of-war, lazily rolling with the tide.
Then there was a great bustle on board, and the sailors flew to the rigging, the sails filled with the wind, and through the port hole was run the ugly muzzle of a Long Tom. The waterman with me laughed merrily.
"They think they can stop us," said he, but he never altered his course.
So we bore down on her until there came a flash; a cannon ball came ricochetting across the water, but fell short by a hundred yards.
The waterman chuckled. "That is about the right distance," said he; and the boat answering the helm, fairly danced around his Majesty's representative, always, by a saving grace, just beyond cannon shot.