The man had crept up quietly behind the lovers and had tried to attract their attention by his coughing and strange noises.
"I will go forward, Smithson."
"Ay, ay, sir!" Then to himself he muttered: "He's a good sort, too good for a privateer; he ought to be on a reg'lar man-o'-war, or better'n that, a whaler away down in the Suthern seas. Blow me, but I like whalin' better'n fightin', I do."
"Go below, Bertha, and try and get some sleep. No one shall disturb your solitude, and I want some rose-bloom on your cheeks when you reach land, you know."
Bertha Decatur went to her cabin, for the first time wishing that her lover was anything but a fighting man. The danger was so great.
"I can pray for him," she said, "and who knows, mayhap prayers will save his life."
"A sail, did you say?"
"Ay ay, sir, and suspicious, too. She has a narrow head to her topsails, and looks like a Frenchman."
"Where away?"
Far away on the horizon, where the light was fast waning, a little white speck appeared, hardly visible to the naked eye, but quite plain through a glass, was a large ship on the port tack in cruising canvas only.