"Where-away, sure enough, youngster?" added the admiral. "I see some gulls glancing along the surface of the water, a mile or two outside the ships, but nothing like a sail."
The boy caught up Dutton's glass, which lay on the seat, and, in a minute, he had it levelled at the expanse of water. It was some little time, and not without much sighting along the barrel of the instrument, that he got it to suit himself.
"Well, Master Sharp-eyes," said Bluewater, drily, "is it a Frenchman, or a Spaniard?"
"Hold on, a moment, sir, until I can get this awkward glass to bear on it.—Ay—now I have her—she's but a speck, at the best—royals and head of top-gallant-sails—no, sir, by George, it's our own cutter, the Active, with her square-sail set, and the heads of her lower sails just rising. I know her by the way she carries her gaff."
"The Active!—that betokens news," observed Bluewater, thoughtfully—for the march of events, at that moment, must necessarily brink on a crisis in his own career. "Sir Gervaise sent her to look into Cherbourg."
"Yes, sir; we all know that—and, there she comes to tell us, I hope, that Monsieur de Vervillin, has, at last, made up his mind to come out and face us, like a man. Will you look at the sail, sir?"
Bluewater took the glass, and sweeping the horizon, he soon caught a view of his object. A short survey sufficed, for one so experienced, and he handed the glass back to the boy.
"You have quick eyes, sir," he said, as he did so; "that is a cutter, certainly, standing in for the roads, and I believe you may be right in taking her for the Active."
"'Tis a long way to know so small a craft!" observed Dutton, who also took his look at the stranger.
"Very true, sir," answered the boy; "but one ought to tell a friend as far as he can see him. The Active carries a longer and a lower gaff, than any other cutter in the navy, which is the way we all tell her from the Gnat, the cutter we have with us."