“It is the Frenchman!” said the free-trader. “He is charitably looking for the wreck of his late enemy!”
“It may be so, for our fate can be no secret to him;” was the answer of Ludlow. “Unhappily, we had run some distance from the anchorage, before the flames broke out. Truly, those with whom we so lately struggled for life, are bent on a duty of humanity.”
“Ah, yonder is his crippled consort!—to leeward many a league. The gay bird has been too sadly stripped of its plumage, to fly so near the wind! This is man’s fortune! He uses his power, at one moment, to destroy the very means that become necessary to his safety, the next.”
“And what think you of our hopes?” asked Alida, searching in the countenance of Ludlow a clue to their fate. “Does the stranger move in a direction favorable to our wishes?”
Neither Ludlow nor the Skimmer replied. Both regarded the frigate intently, and then, as objects became more distinct, both answered, by a common impulse, that the ship was steering directly towards them. The declaration excited general hope, and even the negress was no longer restrained by her situation from expressing her joy in vociferous exclamations of delight.
A few minutes of active and ready exertion succeeded. A light boom was unlashed from the raft, and raised on its end, supporting a little signal, made of the handkerchiefs of the party, which fluttered in the light breeze, at the elevation of some twenty feet above the surface of the water. After this precaution was observed, they were obliged to await the result in such patience as they could assume. Minute passed after minute, and, at each moment, the form and proportions of the ship became more distinct, until all the mariners of the party declared they could distinguish men on her yards. A cannon would have readily sent its shot from the ship to the raft, and yet no sign betrayed the consciousness of those in the former of the proximity of the latter.
“I do not like his manner of steering!” observed the Skimmer to the silent and attentive Ludlow. “He yaws broadly, as if disposed to give up the search. God grant him the heart to continue on his course ten minutes longer!”
“Have we no means of making ourselves heard?” demanded the Alderman. “Methinks the voice of a strong man might be sent thus far across the water when life is the stake.”
The more experienced shook their heads; but, not discouraged, the burgher raised his voice with a power that was sustained by the imminency of the peril. He was joined by the seamen, and even Ludlow lent his aid, until all were hoarse with the fruitless efforts. Men were evidently aloft, and in some numbers, searching the ocean with their eyes, but still no answering signal came from the vessel.
The ship continued to approach, and the raft was less than half a mile from her bows, when the vast fabric suddenly receded from the breeze, showed the whole of its glittering broadside, and, swinging its yards, betrayed by its new position that the search in that direction was abandoned. The instant Ludlow saw the filling-off of the frigate’s bows, he cried—