"It's ahead, sir," he shouted. "Bears a point off the starboard bow."
Captain March made no reply; his face was as immobile as a figurehead. Whatever exultation he may have felt in the triumph of his reckoning, he was never to show it.
By eight bells the light was abreast, and they had hauled up on their course past Sail Rock. The gale was sweeping down through the passage, with a threatening sea, and every bit of rigging roaring and piping to the tune of the road. Suddenly, out of the blackness on their port bow a dark shape loomed, and the rock stood up almost beside them. Without changing the course a hair, they drew near, passed under its lee, with the gale dropping for an instant and the staysails flapping, and overhead, from the rock, the sound of startled sea-birds crying in the night. Then the gale rushed down again, and sea and rigging roared once more.
Medbury gave a sigh of wonder.
"Never heard anything like that before," he exclaimed.
"You can always hear them at night, if you go close enough," said the captain.
"Well, it's stirring," replied Medbury. He walked to the rail and scanned the sea with the glass. "Pity there isn't something more'n a 'bug light' on St. Thomas," he said to the captain as he walked over to his side. "We might skip right in before daybreak."
Captain March glanced over the rail.
"By daybreak we'll not need St. Thomas light," he said dryly, and bent to the wheel again.
"The old pirate!" muttered Medbury. "He's chartered for Santa Cruz, and that's where he's going! There's five feet of water in the hold, and a tearing gale loose, and a worn-out, hopeless crew; but he's going to Santa Cruz! If the wind should flop around or fall, we'd go to the bottom; but it won't. It wouldn't have the cheek—not with him. Well!"