Captain Leach's trip in search of a new berth had been undertaken so early in the morning that it was not yet noon when he had returned. Some little time after that, I being in my own cabin at the time, there came of a sudden a sound that was, as it were, the first muttering of the storm that was so soon to fall upon us. It was the dull and heavy boom of a single cannon, sounding from a great way off, and which I instantly knew had been fired aboard of the pirate craft. I went straight upon the deck, where I found the weather still as dead a calm as it had been the two days before, with not so much as a breath of air stirring or a cat's-paw upon the water. The ground-swell rose and fell as smoothly as though the sea ran with oil instead of water, and the sky above had an appearance as of a solid sheet of steel-blue, with not so much as one single cloud upon the whole face of it. But the first thing that I beheld was the pirate craft, and that they were hoisting sail as though they perceived a breeze coming, of which we saw nothing. Across her port bow the smoke of her gun still hung like a round white cloud just above the glassy surface of the sea.
"Sure she means to quit us, Mr. Langely," said I; but Mr. Langely never answered, for just as he opened his lips to speak, the lookout roared, "Sail ho!"
"Where away?" sang out Mr. White, who was officer of the deck at that time. But before the word reached us I myself, and I suspect most of the others, had sighted the craft away to the southward, coming up under full sail, and with a breeze of which we could see nothing.
She was at that time some six or seven miles distant, and just emerging from behind a raised thicket of scrub bushes that lay betwixt her and the Cassandra, and which had hidden her until now.
The strange craft was a large sloop, of such an appearance that even had not the pirate fired that which was no doubt a signal-gun, methinks I should have entertained the most sinister and gloomy forebodings concerning her nature and her character.
"What do you think of her, Mr. Langely?" said I, after watching her for some time in silence.
"It is the pirate's consort, sir," said he, very seriously.
"I do believe you are right," said I, "and that is why she has been waiting for all these days, keeping us bottled up so that we could not have got away even if we had had a breeze."
I did not tell Mr. Langely all that was upon my mind; nevertheless, I could not but regard our present position as one of the most extreme peril. For if one pirate craft, with its crew of blood-thirsty wretches, was a match for us sufficient to hold us where we now were, what harm might not two of them accomplish should they attack us peaceful merchantmen, unused as we were to the arts of war, in this narrow harbor, where we might hope neither to manœuvre nor to escape.
We were already cleared for action, having had full time to prepare ourselves since danger had first threatened us; accordingly, leaving Mr. Langely to supervise such few details as might still remain to demand attention, I had my gig lowered, and went aboard of the Greenwich to consult with Captain Kirby as to means of defending ourselves against this new and additional danger that threatened our existence.