“Where is the citizen?” he asked, bearing hard against the tiller and staring straight ahead. “He isn’t gone overboard, is he? I don’t seem to have seen him since we rounded the land near Porquerolles Castle.”
Michel, after craning his head forward to look over the edge of the deck, announced that Scevola was sitting on the keelson.
“Go forward,” said Peyrol, “and ease off the foresheet now a little. This tartane has wings,” he added to himself.
Alone on the after-deck Peyrol turned his head to look at the Amelia. That ship, in consequence of holding her wind, was now crossing obliquely the wake of the tartane. At the same time she had diminished the distance. Nevertheless, Peyrol considered that had he really meant to escape, his chances were as eight to ten—practically an assured success. For a long time he had been contemplating the lofty pyramid of canvas towering against the fading red belt on the sky, when a lamentable groan made him look round. It was Scevola. The citizen had adopted the mode of progression on all fours, and while Peyrol looked at him he rolled to leeward, saved himself rather cleverly from going overboard, and holding on desperately to a cleat, shouted in a hollow voice, pointing with the other hand as if he had made a tremendous discovery: “La terre! La terre!”
“Certainly,” said Peyrol, steering with extreme nicety. “What of that?”
“I don’t want to be drowned!” cried the citizen in his new hollow voice. Peyrol reflected a bit before he spoke in a serious tone:
“If you stay where you are, I assure you that you will ...” he glanced rapidly over his shoulder at the Amelia ... “not die by drowning.” He jerked his head sideways. “I know that man’s mind.”
“What man? Whose mind?” yelled Scevola with intense eagerness and bewilderment. “We are only three on board.”
But Peyrol’s mind was contemplating maliciously the figure of a man with long teeth, in a wig and with large buckles to his shoes. Such was his ideal conception of what the captain of the Amelia ought to look like. That officer, whose naturally good-humoured face wore then a look of severe resolution, had beckoned his first lieutenant to his side again.
“We are gaining,” he said quietly. “I intend to close with him to windward. We won’t risk any of his tricks. It is very difficult to outmanœuvre a Frenchman, as you know. Send a few armed marines on the forecastle ahead. I am afraid the only way to get hold of this tartane is to disable the men on board of her. I wish to goodness I could think of some other. When we close with her, let the marines fire a well-aimed volley. You must get some marines to stand by aft as well. I hope we may shoot away his halliards; once his sails are down on his deck he is ours for the trouble of putting a boat over the side.”