“He’s dead, don’t you see;” said the doctor.
“A sail on the starboard quarter;” cried a man aloft.
“No more pirates, I hope;” exclaimed Fortyfolios, who had just ventured on deck.
“It is not quite impossible, don’t you see;” was the surgeon’s encouraging reply, and both almost immediately descended the hatchway, one to look after his patients, and the other to look after himself. Oriel Porphyry hastened to the captain, whom he found standing in the waist, examining the distant vessel through a glass.
“Any more fighting preparing for us?” inquired the young merchant.
“Can’t exactly say yet, sir, but it’s best to be prepared;” replied old Hearty, as he gave some orders to the men around him. “She looms large, and looks as if she was arter standing right across our fore-foot. Now she’s alterin her course, and is comin with all sail set right down upon us. Call all hands to quarters: Climberkin, let the guns be shotted, and the dead bodies flung into the sea;—and yet I think she’s a merchantman. Scrunch me, if it arn’t my old ship, the Whittington!”
“What, my father’s vessel?” asked Oriel Porphyry.
“The very same!” cried the old man with delight. “I knows her better nor any ship I ever sailed in. No doubt she wants to speak with us. Bring her head up to the wind, helmsman! I wonder whether my old captain is alive still? He was a right-down trump. But what a mazement he’ll be in to find me in command o’ the Albatross.”
“I know Captain Barter well. I’ve met him frequently at my father’s table, and a very gentlemanly, sensible man he is;” said the young merchant. “I have no doubt he’s brought me some communication from Columbus.”