The aged seaman, who evidently suspended his orders only to receive an intimation of the other's pleasure, immediately commanded his youthful assistant to issue the necessary mandates to put these measures in force. Accordingly, the Alacrity, which vessel had been left under the command of the junior lieutenant of the frigate, was quickly under way; and, making short stretches to windward, she soon entered the bank of fog, and was lost to the eye. In the mean time the canvas of the ship was loosened, and spread leisurely, in order not to disturb the portion of the crew who were sleeping; and, following her little consort, she moved heavily through the water, bearing up against the dull breeze.
The quiet of regular duty had succeeded to the bustle of making sail; and, as the rays of the sun fell less obliquely on the distant land, Katherine and Cecilia were amusing Griffith by vain attempts to point out the rounded eminences which they fancied lay in the vicinity of the deserted mansion of St. Ruth. Barnstable, who had resumed his former station in the frigate as her second lieutenant, was pacing the opposite side of the quarter-deck, holding under his arm the speaking-trumpet, which denoted that he held the temporary control of the motions of the ship, and inwardly cursing the restraint that kept him from the side of his mistress. At this moment of universal quiet, when nothing above low dialogues interrupted the dashing of the waves as they were thrown lazily aside by the bows of the vessel, the report of a light cannon burst out of the barrier of fog, and rolled by them on the breeze, apparently vibrating with the rising and sinking of the waters.
“There goes the cutter!” exclaimed Griffith, the instant the sound was heard.
“Surely,” said the captain, “Somers is not so indiscreet as to scale his guns, after the caution he has received!”
“No idle scaling of guns is intended there,” said the Pilot, straining his eyes to pierce the fog, but soon turning away in disappointment at his inability to succeed—“that gun is shotted, and has been fired in the hurry of a sudden signal!—can your lookouts see nothing, Mr. Barnstable?”
The lieutenant of the watch hailed the man aloft, and demanded if anything were visible in the direction of the wind, and received for answer that the fog intercepted the view in that quarter of the heavens, but that the sail in the east was a ship, running large, or before the wind. The Pilot shook his head doubtingly at this information, but still he manifested a strong reluctance to relinquish the attempt of getting more to the southward. Again he communed with the commander of the frigate, apart from all other ears; and while they yet deliberated, a second report was heard, leaving no doubt that the Alacrity was firing signal-guns for their particular attention.
“Perhaps,” said Griffith, “he wishes to point out his position, or to ascertain ours; believing that we are lost like himself in the mist”
“We have our compasses!” returned the doubting captain; “Somers has a meaning in what he says!”
“See!” cried Katherine, with girlish delight, “see, my cousin! see, Barnstable! how beautifully that vapor is wreathing itself in clouds above the smoky line of fog! It stretches already into the very heavens like a lofty pyramid!”
Barnstable sprang lightly on a gun, as he repeated her words: