I durst not cry out lest I were mistaken; but, straining my eyes, in the course of a few minutes I made out the speck to be beyond doubt the royals of a distant ship.
"Sail ho!" I cried with all my might.
"Where away?" shouts the captain, and when I answered "About west-sou'-west," he went to the companion way, reached for his perspective glass, and, mounting the rigging, climbed as high as the royal yard.
He took a long look through the glass, and then, shutting it up with a snap, he cries:
"You're right, my lad, smite my taffrail if you're not. She's a Frenchman, sure enough, and the bounty's yours if it comes to a battering and grappling. I'm a man of my word, I am."
The stranger was yet a good way off, and the captain, instead of altering the brig's course and standing in pursuit, shouted to the men to brace the yards round, and, the wind being due north, headed straight for Bordeaux, whither the vessel was to all appearance making. At the same time he hoisted French colors at the mizzen, and then ordered one of the anchors to be dropped over the stern and about fifty fathom of cable to be paid out, the meaning of which I did not understand till Dilly explained that 'twas to check the way on the brig and allow the stranger to overhaul us. Then he cried to us to lie flat on the deck and keep out of sight, and he sent one of the best hands to the wheel, wearing a red cap, which was, Dilly told me, to make him look like a Frencher.
There was only a light six-knot breeze, and Dilly said that the anchor dragging astern took quite two knots off our speed, so that in the course of an hour the stranger came clearly into view. She was a big barque, deep in the water, and the men chuckled as they peeped at her, for 'twas clear she was full of cargo. Every sail was set, alow and aloft, and she came on steadily at a good rate, not altering her course a point, from which 'twas plain she had as yet no suspicions of us.
I noticed that a buoy had been fixed to the end of the cable inboard.
"What's that for?" I asked Dilly, who lay at my side.
"'Tis ready to be flung over," he replied, "so as to mark the position of our cable when it is sent by the board. We'll come back for it anon."