The skipper seemed to know the bank pretty well, for he sprung his luff and headed into the harbour without waiting for a pilot. We ran close in, clewing up the topsails as we went; then dropping the head-sails, let go the hook within pistol-shot of the town of Nassau. The town looked inviting enough. There it lay, and any kind of a swimmer could make the beach easily. In fact, before we had the sails rolled up there were niggers alongside, swimming out in utter disregard for sharks, and begging for a coin to be tossed overboard that they might dive for it and catch it before it reached the bottom. I was anxious about Tim. His strange action and talk made me expect some peculiar happening, and I watched him closely.
Martin came to me as I stood in the fore-rigging and spoke, looking longingly at the white coral beach, where the cocoanuts raised their bunchy, long-leaved tops into the hot air and rustled softly an invitation to the sailor.
“I say, Heywood, ye dare do it or no, hey?” he said.
“I’ll see,” I answered; “but isn’t the barky all right? We’ve been treated mighty well even if we were gulled in signing into her. I don’t know the place, and we might be a great deal worse off ashore.”
“Barky be sunk! What the devil care I for the barky, man? Didn’t I sign on as mate?”
Bill came down from aloft and joined us, and then big Jones came forward with Tim. We made a pretence of coiling down running-gear on the pin-rail, while we gazed longingly at the shore.
While we looked, a whale-boat shot out from the landing. It was rowed by eight strapping blacks, the oars double-banked, and in the stern-sheets were two men in white linen, looking very cool and trim in the hot sunshine. As the craft drew nearer, we saw she was heading for us, and the two men were gazing at our quarter-deck, where Hawkson and Captain Howard were talking earnestly with Hicks and Renshaw. The one who was steering was a medium-sized man with a smooth, red face, his beard seeming to start just beneath his chin and fill his collar with its shaggy growth that shot upward from somewhere below.
Behind this man in the stern-sheets, I caught the flutter of a dress, and soon made out the figure of a young girl dressed in white muslin.
“Who is it?” asked Bill. “Looks youst like an admiral.”
“It’s Yankee Dan,” said Tim. “I thought so. That’s his daughter with him. He’s the biggest trader north o’ Cuba.”