“A sail!” cried Mr Meldrum, quite as much astonished as the rest; and he hurried out to scan the offing. However, he could not see anything, and thought the man must have been asleep at his post and dreaming. “Do you know what you are saying?” he called out to the look-out. “Where away is this sail, my man!”
“Far off on the port side of the reef, sir,” answered the sailor, speaking quite composedly.
“What do you make it?” asked the other, as he hastened to the look-out station, which commanded a larger stretch of the coast than could be seen from the house—Mr McCarthy and the others following after him with anxious curiosity.
“Looks like a boat’s sail, sir; but, it’s so far to leeward, I can’t quite make it out yet.”
“I see,” said Mr Meldrum, who had now reached the man, taking his glass from his pocket and looking in the direction pointed out. “Yes, there is a small boat, sure enough. By Jove,” he added presently, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the missing mutineers in the longboat turned up at last! Look, McCarthy, and see if you don’t recognise the Nancy Bell’s boat by the white streak below the gunwale.”
The first-mate took the telescope and gazed intently at the approaching object for some few moments. He then turned round and stared at Mr Meldrum.
“Be jabers, it is the longboat, sorr!” he exclaimed at length; “and faix, sorr, I belave I can say that baste Moody lookin’ out over the gunwale, as if tellin’ thim where to steer, with his long black hair and ugly mug, and the cut across his hid which the cap’en giv him wid the butt end of his pistol! The murtherin’ villin! won’t I be aven wid him if iver he comes ashore, and pay him out—bad cess to him!”
“Are you sure,” said Mr Meldrum, “that it is the long-boat?”
“As sartin as there’s mud in a ditch, son—the divil a doubt of it!”