“Ay, ay, Guinea is like the launch of one of the coasters, always towing in your wake, master Harry; whereas I am often luffing athwart your hawse, or getting foul, in some fashion or other, on one of your quarters. Howsomever, we are both shipped, as you see, in this here cruise, with the particulars of which we are both well satisfied. So pass the word among us, what is to be done next, and no more parley.”
“Remember the cautions you have already received returned Wilder, who saw that the devotion of his followers was too infinite to need quickening, and who knew, from long and perilous experience, how implicitly he might rely on their fidelity, notwithstanding certain failings, that were perhaps peculiar to their condition; remember what I have already given in charge; and now pull directly for yon ship in the outer harbour.”
Fid and the black promptly complied; and the boat was soon skimming the water between the little island and what might, by comparison, be called the main. As they approached the vessel, the strokes of the oars were moderated, and finally abandoned altogether, Wilder preferring to let the skiff drop down with the tide upon the object he wished well to examine before venturing to board.
“Has not that ship her nettings triced to the rigging?” he demanded, in a voice that was lowered to the tones necessary to escape observation, and which betrayed, at the same time, the interest he took in the reply.
“According to my sight, she has,” returned Fid; “your slavers are a little pricked by conscience, and are never over-bold, unless when they are chasing a young nigger on the coast of Congo. Now, there is about as much danger of a Frenchman’s looking in here to-night, with this land breeze and clear sky, as there is of my being made Lord High Admiral of England; a thing not likely to come to pass soon, seeing that the King don’t know a great deal of my merit.”
“They are, to a certainty, ready to give a warm reception to any boarders!” continued Wilder, who rarely paid much attention to the amplifications with which Fid so often saw fit to embellish the discourse. “It would be no easy matter to carry a ship thus prepared, if her people were true to themselves.”
“I warrant ye there is a full quarter-watch at least sleeping among her guns, at this very moment, with a bright look-out from her cat-heads and taffrail. I was once on the weather fore-yard-arm of the Hebe, when I made, hereaway to the south-west, a sail coming large upon us,”—
“Hist! they are stirring on her decks!”
“To be sure they are. The cook is splitting a log; the captain has sung out for his night-cap.”
The voice of Fid was lost in a summons from the ship, that sounded like the roaring of some sea monster which had unexpectedly raised its head above the water. The practised ears of our adventurers instantly comprehended it to be, what it truly was, the manner in which it was not unusual to hail a boat. Without taking time to ascertain that the plashing of oars was to be heard in the distance. Wilder raised his form in the skiff, and answered.