“Sail ho!” shouted I from the mizzen cross-trees, where I had gone to look out, Tom Jerrold being sent up aloft forward for the same purpose. “Sail ho!”
“Where away?” cried Mr Mackay, clutching the glass and climbing up into the rigging as he spoke, being as spry as a cat. “What do you make out?”
“Two of them, sir,” said I; “and I believe it’s these pirates, sir, again. They’re on our weather quarter, hull down to windward.”
“Right you are, my boy!” cried he presently after a careful inspection of the objects I had pointed out from the top, though he did not come up aloft any higher, his telescope under his arm being rather awkward to carry. “They are the same craft, sure enough. It is most vexatious!”
He went down below to tell the captain, and, of course, the news soon spread through the ship, all hands turning out and coming on deck to have a look at these bloodhounds of the deep, that seemed bent on pursuing us to the death.
They did not close on us, though, keeping the same distance off, some ten miles or so, till sundown, when they approached a little nearer and could be seen astern of us, through the middle watch, by the aid of the night-glass; but they sheered off again at the breaking of this third day, by which time we could see Pulo Sapata right ahead, a most uninviting spot apparently, consisting of nothing but one big bare rock.
Here, hauling round on the starboard tack, we shaped our course east-nor’-east, to pass over the Macclesfield Bank, in a straight line almost for Formosa Strait, our most direct route to Shanghai, the proa and the junk still keeping after us at a safe distance off.
“By Jingo, I’ll tire ’em out yet!” cried “Old Jock” savagely, when, on our getting abreast of the Paracels, although far off to leeward, he saw the beastly things still in our wake as he came on deck in the morning. “I’ll tire ’em out before I’ve done with ’em.”
But, now, all at once, we had something more important to think of than even the supposed pirates.
The wind had freshened during the morning, blowing as usual from the south-west and west, and towards noon it slackened again; but no importance was attached to this circumstance, at first, by the captain and Mr Mackay, although, when presently the water became thick and a deep irregular swell set in, they both grew rather uneasy.