"She may be, but she is also a Spanish dealer in black cattle," said Weston, who was looking at her through a powerful double-barrelled glass. "I am certain if you could only see her deck when she careens a bit, you would make out the ring-bolts for lashing the slaves to in fine weather."
"Aye, and perhaps those for the carronades too," added Hislop; "she looks rather rakish."
"You are just of my mind, sir," added Tom Lambourne, who was at the wheel. "She'll see the Shark's Nose and the Congo river before she sees the Mosquito creeks or the hills of Costa Rica; and I have a shrewd notion that the pirates we escaped from last night are part of her crew, if one may judge from what Master Rodney, who knows their lingo, overheard them say."
Except across the Peak of Teneriffe, where a cloud of white vapor floated in mid-air like a permanent cymar or girdle, and above which some thousand feet of the mighty cone towered into the blue immensity of space, mellowing from green and purple to a faint-gray tint, the sky was without a cloud.
The waves danced and sparkled in the morning sunshine, the fresh breeze swept pleasantly over their whitening tops and whistled through our rigging, as we ran along the shore with considerable speed; and now our hearts beat lightly, for the broad free ocean was around us, and on clearing the dangerous rocks at Punta de Anaga by giving them a wide berth, we felt the heavier swell of the Atlantic as we brought the larboard tacks on board, and ran, close-hauled, on a taut bowline between the Isles of Teneriffe and Palma, keeping the weathergage of the Costa Rican, and leaving her at the same time fast and far astern.
We had a delightful run through the fertile Archipelago of the Fortunate Isles, and after clearing San Josef, found the wind come more aft. Long after night had closed in, and darkness had enveloped all the sea and the isle of Teneriffe, the cone of the Peak shone redly in mid-air, with the light of the sun that had set in the western waters of the Atlantic.
For the whole of that day we had run fast through the water, making at least seven knots an hour off the log-line, but midnight came before we saw the last of the mighty Peak of Adam.
By that time the wind was fair, and we bore merrily away for the Isles of the West.