“I’m quite aware of that,” said Tom. “But no fellow could go to sleep after such a hideous row as you made. And besides”—looking at his watch—“I’m due in another twenty minutes, so I thought I had better come up with Charley, since I was woke up. Hullo! what is that?” he added, glancing astern at the felucca, which was now almost within speaking distance, and coming on as if she were going to sheer alongside. “What the deuce is that piratical-looking craft running us aboard like that for? If I were you, Mr Tompkins, I would signal them to stand off, and call up the captain and the other watch.”
“I will thank you to mind your own business, Mr Aldridge,” replied the chief mate, not at all pleased with the suggestion. “If you are so terribly alarmed at the sight of a common Levantine coaster, you had better go below again.”
And he turned on his heel, leaving Tom burning with indignation at having his courage questioned and being taunted of being frightened, especially by such a person as Mr Tompkins.
The felucca was barely a cable’s length off now, and in another minute she passed underneath the Muscadine’s stern so closely that they could have chucked a biscuit on board her.
“Schooner ahoy!” hailed Mr Tompkins. “What’s the matter? Do you want anything?”
But no reply was made directly, although the felucca luffed up a bit, and ran for a second or two almost alongside, the ship’s main-yard just touching her reed-like masts, and a voice uttered a few words rapidly in Greek, which Charley, although he had a smattering of the language, could not quite understand, although the foreign sailors on board their vessel evidently did, as they replied in the same tongue. And then the dapper little craft’s lateen sails filled again as her helm was put down, and she flow away from the Muscadine, sailing on a bowline, and heeling over to the wind so as to display half her keel as she topped the waves, just as if the other vessel had been lying still in the water, although she was going a good eight knots by the log in the same direction.
“Did you see that fellow’s face on board the felucca who spoke to our men, Charley?” asked Tom anxiously.
“No,” said Charley. “But I heard his voice, and that was enough for me.”
“Oh, you recognised him, then?”
“Yes. I could swear, only from his voice, that he was the same man who spoke to us in Mohammed’s coffee-shop at Beyrout. He had a most peculiar twang in his speech, which I noticed at the time.”