"When—when do you make the attempt?"
"To-morrow night, or the next, at latest."
"I shall be ready."
"Then to-morrow evening at four bells, in the second dog-watch, be in the forecastle bunks, and you will learn all. Till then, companero, be silent, and remember!"
With another significant touch of his knife-handle, Pedro retired, leaving Hawkshaw in a very unenviable state of mind. As a bold and reckless ruffian, the Spanish American valued him little as an ally; but the chief object of his visit had been attained—information that the ship, instead of being hauled up for Table Bay, was past it.
CHAPTER XXII.
FOUR BELLS IN THE DOG-WATCH.
All the next day there blew a gale, and Captain Phillips, anxious to make the most of it, as the wind was fair, squared his yards, with all that he dared to spread upon them. So sharp was the aforesaid gale, that on a taut bowline, no vessel could have shown more than a single sail, perhaps; but the Hermione tore on before the hurrying blast, with her fore and main courses bellying out before it, and her three topsails set with a single reef in each.
Ere long, Captain Phillips was heard to shout:
"Away aloft, men—shake the reefs out of the topsails—masthead the yards."