Jack Harvey, eager to be avenged for his wrongs, was for standing over boldly and attacking the bug-eye then and there; but Will Adams and Edward Warren, older and wiser, were for waiting.
“We’ll never let him sail away,” said Will Adams, reassuringly; “depend on that. But every minute we wait, saves a blow. They may be suspicious for a while, but they’ll not watch all night.”
“But how can we reach them without giving warning?” asked Tom Edwards. “They’ll hear us if we try to make sail, and one small skiff won’t hold us all.”
Will Adams pulled out his watch and noted the time. “In two hours it will be easy,” he answered. “In two hours the tide will begin to ebb out of the river. We’re above the Brandt. When the tide turns, we’ll just start the anchor off bottom and drop back on her. Get out the guns and make ready—but be quiet.”
They worked silently, and watched the hands of Will Adams’s watch move slowly around the dial. It seemed as though an hour would never go. Sixty more long minutes, and, as Will Adams had foretold, the vessels were swinging. Now their bows were no longer pointing out of the cove, but up-river.
Will Adams, in stocking feet, crept cautiously out on deck and extinguished the harbour light in the shrouds.
“We’ll see if they take notice of that,” he whispered, as he crept back again.
There was no sound of life aboard the Brandt, which swung idly at its mooring.
Gathering his force now, Will Adams instructed them in the parts each should play. He sent Jack Harvey astern to the wheel.
“You know how to steer her when she’s going astern?” he asked—“Just the reverse of the usual way.”