As the mate of the Anny clapped it to his eye an exclamation of surprise escaped him.
“Mother of Heaven, what will that be?” he murmured, and putting the glass under his arm went down the deck in search of the Captain.
As usual the little Spaniard was standing against the main mast, his arms folded across his chest, and his heavy-lidded eyes half closed.
Blueneck approached him deferentially and reported—“Ship ahead, Capt’n.”
The deeply sunken eyes opened at once and Dick put out one delicately scented hand for the glass.
“She’s sighted us, dogs,” he remarked calmly a second or so later.
Blueneck gasped.
“I’ll go and head her round, Capt’n,” he said at once.
Dick lowered the telescope and looked over it in quiet surprise.
“That you will not, son of a snipe,” he said, his soft voice playing musically with the words.