"There she's noo, sir, wi' top-gallants set aloft, for the wind is but light."
As the gunner spoke the canvas of the strange vessel was seen to glitter like snow in the moonlight; but for a moment only, as she was again immediately shrouded in mist.
"What dost thou take her to be, Robbie?" asked the admiral.
"English," replied Barton, tightening his waist-belt, "English by the rake of her masts and fashion of her top hamper."
"Art sure?"
"I got a full glisk of her just now, as she shot out of one bank into another. Hark! there goes her bell again!"
"Master Wad, got ready a gun there, for on the next tack we may fall aboard of her; I do think she is English, though there was no red-cross on her fore-topsail. But clear away for battle, Barton, for if it is the gallant Howard, we shall avenge thy father's fall, and make such a din on these waters as will scare all the fish between Fifeness and the Carlinheugh. Take in sail, and beat to quarters."
The kettle-drum rolled and the trumpet was blown: in three minutes the ports were opened; the sails reduced by the watch; the magazine opened by the gunner; the arquebussiers of Falconer manned the tops and poop, and flinging aside their bonnets and gaberdines, five hundred seamen, grasping the rammers and sponges, the linstocks and tackle of the cannon, stood in fighting order, while Master Wad fired a gun, and ran a red lantern up to the mast-head, to let Sir Alexander Mathieson, who was half a mile astern, know that the admiral had cleared for action.
"Sail ho!—here she comes again!" cried a hundred voices, as the gigantic outline of the English ship, looming like a great cloud through the mist, approached on the opposite tack, and within pistol-shot. Both shortened sail by backing their fore and mizen-yards. By the line of lights that glittered along the stranger's deck, her crew were evidently standing by their guns, and all equally prepared. Trumpet in hand, Barton, whose heart was brimming with fiery joy, sprang into the main-chains on the starboard side.
"Silence fore and aft!" cried he; but the warning was needless, for then one might have heard a pin fall on board the Yellow Frigate.