We rose and went on deck, and saw the object to windward clearly enough. She appeared to be dodging us; and when we kept away, or luffed up in the wind, she instantly manoeuvred in the same fashion, so soon as she perceived we were altering our position from her.
"Come, that fellow is watching us, at any rate," said the captain, "whatever the felucca may have done. I wish we were fairly round Cape Antonio. I fear there is some concert between the two. Mr Crosjack," to his mate, "keep a bright look-out—keep your eye on him, until I take a look at the chart below: he seems determined to jam us on the Florida shore. Surely the current is stronger than I have allowed for, or we should have made more of it by this time than we have done."
Curiosity led me to accompany the skipper below, and we were both poring over the chart, when the mate called down—
"The schooner has bore up for us, sir, and is coming down like an arrow on our weather-quarter."
"The devil she is!" said the skipper, dashing down his compasses and parallel ruler with such vehemence, that the former were driven through the chart, and stuck quivering in the table on one-leg, like an opera-dancer; then slamming on his hat, he jumped up the ladder.
This startled the Dons. The curtains in front of the side-berths were drawn aside with a jarring rasp of the brass rings along the rods, and four half-naked Spaniards, with their-nightcaps on, and their gold or silver crucifixes, like glow-worms in moss (Lord! what a fantastical image), glancing on their hairy chests in the candle-light, sat up; while the inmates of the two state-rooms stretched their necks to look into the cabin.
"Que—que—buque a barlovento?"—(What is it?—what—a vessel to windward?)
"Yes," said I; "there is a strange sail after us, and dodging us rather suspiciously."
"Sospechoso! sospechoso!—buque sospechoso!—Ave Maria!"—and forthwith the whole lot of warriors jumped out of bed; and great was the confusion that arose while busy decorating themselves. One poor fellow, half asleep, turned his trowsers the wrong way, as if he were going to sail stern foremost, like a Dutch schuyet. Another stuck a leg into his own galligaskins right enough; while his neighbour, half asleep, had appropriated the other branch of the subject, whereby they both lost their balance, and fell down in this Irish manacle on their noses on the cabin floor; "carrajoing," and spurring each other in great wrath.
The alarm in the brig had now become general, and half-a-dozen more of our passengers came tumbling down the companion-ladder, having left their quarters in the steerage, as if their chance of safety had been greater in the cabin; and such a jumble of shouting, and cursing, and praying, I never heard before; some of them calling to the steward to open the hatch in the cabin floor, in order to stow away their treasure in the run, others bustling with their trabucos; some fixing flints, others ramming down the bullets before the cartridges, when—crack—one of their pieces went off in the confusion, and filled the cabin with smoke, through which I could see several of my allies prostrate on the floor; having fallen down in a panic of fear.