"Starboard a little," he told her then, and ten or twelve minutes' pulling took them back to the Olive Branch, which he must have found by sheer instinct, since the ship was showing no lights.
They approached it almost soundlessly from astern, so that the sleepy look-out on the fo'c'sle-head neither heard nor saw them. For even the stars were invisible then through the curtain of vapour overhanging the coast.
Reuben Yoxall, the mate, was awaiting them at the poop-rail. He threw Sallie a line, and running to the companion-hatch, called Jasper Slyne up from the little saloon below. The two of them hoisted Captain Dove up the side, and after him Sallie, as light and agile as any boy. The canvas boat was easily got to the rail, folded flat and returned to its hiding-place.
Sallie stayed on deck, and Yoxall was not long in rejoining her there. Slyne and Captain Dove had sat down to a leisurely supper below. The plup! of a cork popping in the saloon broke the silence just before seven bells struck. They had half an hour yet till midnight.
CHAPTER V
AFLOAT AND ASHORE
"Who's that, Rube?—there, by the hatch," whispered Sallie, and pointed to where a pair of white eyeballs had been uncannily visible for a moment and then disappeared. She was nervous and overwrought in the midst of so many uncertainties.
Yoxall had stepped quickly in front of her. He caught sight of a shadow crawling away in the dark on the deck below.
"One of the niggers," he told her, and turned. "He's come scouting aft more than once while you were ashore. Most of the men are asleep, I suppose, but there are sure to be some standing guard—they won't run any risk of being caught napping by Captain Dove."