"So I perceive, sir," said the skipper; "but if it were not for their neighbourhood, Mr Brail, I would have recommended Mr Lennox to stay where he was until the weather cleared; but there is no help for it now."
The morning wore on. We were now sliding along shore about a mile from the beach, and our view down to the westward, as we approached the southernmost point of the island, began to open.
The higher part of the land was quite clear; the outline, indeed, dangerously distinct and near-like, according to my conception; but the white clouds that floated over it when we first started, like a sea of wool, and which usually rise and exhale under the morning sun, had in the present case rolled off to the southward, and lay heaped up in well-defined masses, like the smoke of an engagement floating sluggishly in the thunder-calmed air, close to the surface of the water.
I was admiring this uncommon appearance, not without some awkward forebodings, when a flaw of wind off the land rent the veil in the middle, or rather opened an arch in it, at the end of whose gloomy vista rose the island as a dark background, and suddenly disclosed a small schooner lying to, so clear and model-like under the canopy of vapour, that I can compare it to nothing more aptly than a sea-scene in a theatre.
"Hillo!" said I, "what vessel is that down to leeward there? It must be our friend of last night, I take it. Hand me up the glass, if you please."
"Where's the small flag—where's the small flag?" sung out Toby.
"Here, sir," said Chip the negro, as he bent it on to the signal haulyards.
"Then hoist away," rejoined Tooraloo. "That is the Waterwraith down to leeward, sir, to a certainty."
"Sure enough," I replied; "I hope he will let us go without overhauling us. I am not at all amorous of the society of those gentry—quite enough of it in the bay yonder, Toby."
The moment she saw us, she made sail towards us, but hove about so soon as she saw the signal, which she answered with a similar flag, and then stood in for the land again.