“Certainly not—none know of it but yourself. I thought that if Griffith and you could learn our situation, you might be tempted to hazard a little to redeem us from our thraldom. In this paper I have prepared such an account as will, I trust, excite all your chivalry, and by which you may govern your movements.”
“Our movements!” interrupted Barnstable. “You will pilot us in person.”
“Then there's two of them!” said a hoarse voice near them.
The alarmed female shrieked as she recovered her feet, but she still adhered, with instinctive dependence, to the side of her lover. Barnstable, who recognized the tones of his cockswain, bent an angry brow on the sober visage that was peering at them above the hedge, and demanded the meaning of the interruption.
“Seeing you were hull down, sir, and not knowing but the chase might lead you ashore, Mr. Merry thought it best to have a lookout kept. I told him that you were overhauling the mail-bags of the messenger for the news, but as he was an officer, sir, and I nothing but a common hand, I did as he ordered.”
“Return, sir, where I commanded you to remain,” said Barnstable, “and desire Mr. Merry to wait my pleasure.”
The cockswain gave the usual reply of an obedient seaman; but before he left the hedge, he stretched out one of his brawny arms towards the ocean, and said, in tones of solemnity suited to his apprehensions and character:
“I showed you how to knot a reef-point, and pass a gasket, Captain Barnstable, nor do I believe you could even take two half-hitches when you first came aboard of the Spalmacitty. These be things that a man is soon expart in, but it takes the time of his nat'ral life to larn to know the weather. There be streaked wind-galls in the offing, that speak as plainly to all that see them, and know God's language in the clouds, as ever you spoke through a trumpet, to shorten sail; besides, sir, don't you hear the sea moaning as if it knew the hour was at hand when it was to wake up from its sleep!”
“Ay, Tom,” returned his officer, walking to the edge of the cliffs, and throwing a seaman's glance at the gloomy ocean, “'tis a threatening night indeed; but this pilot must be had—and—”
“Is that the man?” interrupted the cockswain, pointing toward a man who was standing not far from them, an attentive observer of their proceedings, the same time that he was narrowly watched himself by the young midshipman. “God send that he knows his trade well, for the bottom of a ship will need eyes to find its road out of this wild anchorage.”