Here the topman closed his soliloquy, in order to agitate the tobacco again, it being impossible to conduct the process of chewing and talking at one and the same time.
“What of the stranger?” demanded the Rover, a little impatiently.
“It’s no church, that’s certain, your Honour,” said Fid, very decidedly.
“Has he signals flying?”
“He may be speaking with his flags, but it needs a better scholar than Richard Fid to know what he would say. To my eye, there are three new cloths in his main-top-gallant-royal, but no bunting abroad.”
“The man is happy in having so good a sail. Mr Wilder, do you too see the darker cloths in question?”
“There is certainly something which might be taken for canvas newer than the rest. I believe I first mistook the same, as the sun fell brightest on the sail, for the signals I named.”
“Then we are not seen, and may lie quiet for a while, though we enjoy the advantage of measuring the stranger, foot by foot—even to the new cloths in his royal!”
The Rover spoke in a tone that was strangely divided between sarcasm and thought. He then made an impatient gesture to the seamen to quit the poop. When they were alone, he turned to his silent and respectful officers, continuing, in a manner that was grave, while it was conciliatory,——
“Gentlemen,” he said, “our idle time is past, and fortune has at length brought activity into our track. Whether the ship in sight be of just seven hundred and fifty tons, is more than I can pretend to pronounce, but something there is which any seaman may know. But the squareness of her upper-yards, the symmetry with which they are trimmed, and the press of canvass she bears on the wind, I pronounce her to be a vessel of war. Do any differ from my opinion? Mr. Wilder, speak.”