Now a furious snow-storm came on; thick and fast the white flakes fell ceaselessly aslant through a dark-grey sky upon the winter sea (for in that region there is no spring), covering the rigging, the decks, and storm-jackets of the watch, who shrank to leeward, while the wind, which blew keenly from the N.N.E., and thermometer, which had sunk very low, made me begin to reflect that there were more unpleasant places in the world than the counting-room of Mr. Uriah Skrew.
This snow-storm continued for three or four days, during which the whole seamanship of Hartly, Reeves, and Hans Peterkin was required to prevent the Leda being driven upon a lee shore. By chart and soundings they were constantly at work, to keep her off a land which was veiled in obscurity, for the wind was dead and strong against us; and frequently through the blinding snow, and grey hazy drift to leeward, we could hear the sullen booming of breakers, as they rolled in foam that froze upon the granite rocks and islets about Cape Freels.
This foul weather lasted for several days, and weary of beating fruitlessly to windward, when the storm abated, and the sky became again blue and serene, we found ourselves under easy sail, at the rate of four knots an hour or so, passing the Twillingate Isles, which lie between the Bay of Exploits and the vast Bay of Notre Dame. They were covered with snow, and are desolate, bleak, and little known, as on that part of the coast there are only about one hundred and fifty inhabitants—poor people—who, after fishing for cod and salmon in summer, quit their wigwams in winter to live in the sheltered woods, or sail south towards St. John. And now we began to get ready our boats and guns, and with telescopes to sweep the snow-clad shore for seals, and the open sea for ice-floes.
It was about the hour of six; the sun had just set, and the western sky was all a-blaze with fiery-coloured light, which tinged with roseate hues the waves that rolled upon the bleak and snow-clad shore. Captain Hartly took the wheel, and Reeves stood anxiously close by the binnacle, for we had to weather a long, sharp, and lofty promontory which abutted like a wall of rock into the ocean, and round which there eddied a swift and dangerous current. The wind, though now off the land, was too light to enable us to make headway against the stream.
On the brig we had but little "way," and a general exclamation of satisfaction rose from the hitherto silent crew, when the Leda shaved—as they phrased it—past the promontory, and we saw a deep cove of blue water opening beyond it; but lo!
There lay at anchor a schooner—a long, low, sharply prowed and rakish-like craft—with her hull painted black as jet could be, and with a number of rough-looking fellows crowding along her gunwale. We were not three hundred yards apart.
"Reeves, take the wheel," cried Hartly, in an excited voice. "The glass, Cuffy, the spy-glass!" he added with sharp energy, snatching from the hands of Snowball the telescope which usually hung on two hooks in the companion; "a row of ugly dogs they are that man her. By Heaven, she is the Black Schooner!"
"The Black Schooner!" we all exclaimed with something of dismay in our varying tones; and I felt, that with Paul Reeves's grim legend about Captain Kidd fresh in our memory, we had some cause for alarm in meeting with this robber ship upon those solitary seas.
"Are you sure, Hartly?" I asked.
"Not a doubt of it! see, Reeves—she is a two-topsail schooner!"