In the tasks of setting more canvas and wetting it all down from aloft, none had been more active than Mr. Reeve Rudderhead, but his bearing became very nervous and restless when he saw the lines of the guns laid across the deck, the rammers and sponges laid by their sides, the port tackles triced to the lids, and expected every moment to hear Captain Talbot issue an order to throw the ship in the wind.
The latter, however, had no such intention if it could be avoided. He continued dead before the wind with all his yards squared, knowing well that a square-rigged vessel always sailed better so, while fore and aft vessels have most speed on a wind; moreover, as the breeze was light, he spread more canvas than the chase could do, having royals, fourteen studding-sails, and sky-sails fore and aft.
The entire day all hands remained on deck, and what food they had was all taken there. The wind varied a good deal and fell light sometimes on board the Amethyst, while, as if by ill-luck, the chase seemed to have it steadily, and was provokingly enabled to preserve her distance—about two miles.
"Look out!" cried Rudderhead, ducking below the gunnel, as a white puff spirted out from the black bow of the stranger, and a shot, which came ricochetting along the wave-tops, dropped into the water far astern of the Amethyst.
"A hint of what is in store for us," said Captain Talbot; and by sunset she was still coming on, bringing the freshing breeze with her, and the snow-white foam seemed to curl higher and higher round the bright copper that flashed upon her bows.
It was with an emotion of considerable relief that, after a day of such excitement, Captain Talbot saw the sun of the tropics shedding his light like a long level ray of fire from the verge of the horizon, and going down beyond the world of waters which were overspread by a darkness sudden and complete, for luckily there was no moon, and the night was a very gloomy one for those latitudes.
All lights on board were extinguished, the studding-sails and sky-sails were all taken off the ship, the course of which was altered four points; the port-tacks were brought aft, the starboard yard-heads trimmed accordingly, and the Amethyst passed away into the darkness, leaving astern, floating in the water, a ship's lighted lantern attached to a barrel as a decoy—a suggestion of Derval's, and greatly did the Captain compliment him thereon.
This light, which was visible from the deck, continued to bob about on the waves for some time, and no doubt the stranger would continue to steer directly for it, and very probably ran it down, as about an hour after it was set afloat, it suddenly vanished, and by that time the Amethyst was considered safe, all the more so that the wind came more aft for the direction she had taken, and again her yards were squared, but no light was placed in the binnacle; the second mate, Tom Tyeblock, steered her by the light of the stars, and perfect silence was maintained during the night.
When day broke not a vestige of the chase was visible, even from the masthead; the guns were made fast, and the portlids also, the arms and ammunition were all sent below, and the vessel was kept off to her course.
Ere long she reached the 40th degree of southern latitude, and then her prow was pointed to the wide and stormy ocean which divides Africa from Australia; and now gigantic albatrosses—the "man-o'-war bird," as the sailors name them—were seen around the ship, with those graceful little birds which resemble swallows in shape and mode of flying, though smaller—Mother Carey's chickens. "And all the world knows, or ought to know," as a sailor told Derval, "that Mother Carey was an aunt of St. Patrick."