“His dark spirit is there,” said I, audibly, “and calls me—go I will, whatever may befall.”
I hailed the schooner, or rather I had only to speak, and that in a low tone, for she was now close under the counter “Send your boat, for since you call, I know I must come.”
A small canoe slid off her deck; two ship boys got into it, and pulled under the starboard mizzen-chains, which entirely concealed them, as they held on for a moment with a boat-hook in the dark shadow of the ship. This was done so silently, that neither the lookout on the poop, who was rather on the weather-side at the moment, nor the man at the lee gangway, who happened to be looking out forward, heard them, or saw me, as I slipped down unperceived.
“Pull back again, my lads; quick now, quick.”
In a moment, I was along-side, the next I was on deck, and in this short space a change had come over the spirit of my dream, for I now was again conscious that I was on board the Wave with a prize crew. My imagination had taken another direction.
“Now Mr——, I beg pardon, I forget your name,”—I had never heard it, “make more sail, and haul out from the fleet for Mancheoneal Bay; I have despatches for the admiral—So, crack on.”
The midshipman who was in charge of her never for an instant doubted but that all was right; sail was made, and as the light breeze was the very thing for the little Wave, she began to snorer through it like smoke. When she had shot a cable’s length a-head of the Firebrand, we kept away a point or two, so as to stand more in for the land, and, like most maniacs, I was inwardly exulting at the success of my manoeuvre, when we heard the corvette’s bell struck rapidly. Her maintop-sail was suddenly laid to the mast, whilst a loud voice echoed amongst the sails—“Any one see hi—in in the waist—anybody see him forward there?”
“No, sir, no.”
“After guard, fire, and let go the life—buoy—lower away the quarter boats—jolly-boat also.”
We saw the flash, and presently the small blue light of the buoy, blazing and disappearing, as it rose and fell on the waves, in the corvette’s wake, sailed away astern, sparkling fitfully, like an ignis fatuus. The cordage rattled through the davit blocks, as the boats dashed into the water—the splash of the oars was heard, and presently the twinkle of the life-buoy was lost in the lurid glare of the blue lights, held aloft in each boat, where the crews were standing up, looking like spectres by the ghastly blaze, and anxiously peering about for some sign of the drowning man.