At the last order the men levelled their oars, feathering the blades, and remained like eight statues in their seats. Vincent listened with all his ears in the dead silence which prevailed.
"I hear the voices again," he reported to the lieutenant in the stern sheets, in a voice just loud enough to reach him; "they are more to the southward."
"Stand by!" added Mr. Pennant, who had been duly trained in boat service at an oar. "Give way together! No noise!"
The boat went ahead again, though only at a moderate speed consistent with the least possible noise. The quartermaster in the bow continued to gaze into the fog bank, though by this time there was a little lighting up in the east, indicating that the day was breaking. For half an hour longer the cutter continued on its course. Occasionally Vincent had raised his hand over his head, and then dropped it to his left, indicating to the officer in command that the sounds came from farther to the southward, and the cockswain was directed to change the course.
In another half hour the noises could be distinctly heard by the third lieutenant, and he directed the course of the cutter without the need of any more signals from the bow. His first move was to make a more decided course to the southward. Then he hastened the crew in their work.
"Sail, ho!" called Vincent, who had not abated his vigilance on the lookout; and he pointed with his right hand in the direction he had seen the craft.
Mr. Pennant concluded that the sail could not be far off, or it could not be seen, and it would be useless to maintain the dead silence, which was painful to all in the boat. He stood up in his place, and, after looking for a couple of minutes, he made out the sail himself. So far as he could judge from what he saw, the craft was a small sloop of not more than thirty-five feet in length.
"Give way now, lively!" said the third lieutenant, in his ordinary tones. "I make her out, and she is a small sloop. We shall not have much of a brush."
Under the vigorous pulling of eight stalwart men, the cutter leaped forward at a speed that would have won an ordinary boat race, and in ten minutes more, the sloop could be distinctly made out, the cutter running across her bow. She was close-hauled, with the wind from the south-west, and very little of it. On board of her were at least ten men, as the quartermaster counted them, and there might have been more in her cuddy under the hail-deck forward.
"Boat, ahoy!" shouted a man on the forecastle of the sloop.