All apparently was going well, and they had passed several vessels without exciting suspicion, for the smallness of their craft was a great point in their favor, and she might have been taken for a coaster or fisherman hailing from any of the small villages that sent out their little fleets during the trawling season.
Late in the afternoon, while they were creeping southward along the coast, a king’s cutter suddenly appeared around a little headland not two miles away. The French pilot who was at the helm was undoubtedly responsible for what followed, for the sudden appearance of the cutter must have caused him to lose his head. Without a word of warning he threw the yawl up into the wind and headed her off shore, plainly in an endeavor to give the cutter a wider berth. The suspicious action had been seen by the Englishman, who at once altered his own course and turned off in pursuit.
Captain Conyngham at the time that the coast-guard was sighted had been resting asleep under a tarpaulin between the thwarts. The exclamations of the men on seeing the cutter’s tactics aroused him, and as soon as he had looked to leeward he saw that it was only a matter of time when the cutter would overhaul his little craft.
They were still so close into shore that they could see the white surf leaping and boiling against the rocks and at the base of the cliff. At one point he could make out a little break in the steep side, with some foliage near the top, and down at the bottom a short stretch of sandy beach.
A rocky ledge formed a barrier to the entrance of the little cove, and over it the water jumped and tossed angrily. Here and there, farther inshore, leaped sudden spurts of foam as the waves thundered on the sharp points of the hidden rocks. Yet one thing he noticed clearly even at the distance he was from shore—the water ran smoothly and evenly up to the narrow stretch of white beach, showing that within a few feet of shore it deepened again. His mind was made up in an instant.
The yawl was in the midst of the smother.
The cutter was outpointing the yawl, and though at first to leeward was working up to the windward position. Conyngham gave a few quick orders as he grasped the tiller. The yawl swung about, and with loosened sheets caught the wind abaft the beam and tore away shoreward. The cutter came about also, taking a longer time at it, and, flying down just outside the edge of the breakers, made a bold attempt to head the yawl and turn her back before she could cross her bows.
It came to be a question of minutes, and there was an added danger now, for the cutter opened up with a small bow gun, firing as quickly as she could load and aim. But, owing to the small size of the target and the uneven rise and fall of the chop, her marksmanship was bad, and though the balls whistled overhead and plashed all round, not one struck the intended mark.