All these orders were promptly obeyed, and the situation began to look decidedly warlike. Louis could not help asking himself whether or not Captain Scott was not proceeding too rapidly. But the belligerent chief had Captain Ringgold's written orders in his pocket, and there was no room for a protest. Everything appeared to be ready to give the pirate a warm reception, and nothing more could be done.
The Moorish steamer was feeling her way into the bay very slowly, sounding all the time. The Maud was anchored in fourteen feet of water, which placed her keel very near the rocky bottom, and with no greater depth for a cable's length outside of her. Scott had chosen the position of the little steamer so that the Fatimé could not come alongside of her, or within a cable's length of her, which is one-fifth of a nautical mile.
"I think we are all right now, Louis," said Captain Scott when he had completed his preparations.
"It looks as though you meant to fight the pirate," added Louis.
"Not if it can be avoided; but I do not intend to let Mazagan take any one of my people out of the Maud; and all hands will shoot before anything of that kind can happen," replied Scott very mildly, and with no excitement in his manner; for he had studied the bearing of his model, and tried to imitate him.
"Do you expect Mazagan will resort to violence, Captain Scott?"
"That is an odd question, Louis," answered Scott, laughing heartily, perhaps as much to manifest his coolness as to treat the question lightly. "Excuse me, Louis, but you make me smile. Do I expect Mazagan to resort to violence? For what did he visit Pournea Bay? Did he resort to violence when he caught you in that shop in the Muski? Did he resort to violence when his assistants attempted to capture you and Miss Blanche in Zante? What do you suppose he followed the Maud up here for, Louis?"
"Perhaps to induce me to pay him twenty thousand dollars to let up on Miss Blanche and myself," replied Louis, overwhelmed by the argument.
"Are you ready to pay him?"
"Never!"