I passed Brown and made a sign for him to be ready. I fixed my knife where it would be handy.
Every moment was precious now. If the stranger would only see that flag before the convicts could tell of their mistake and crowd on canvas and get the weather-gage, all would be well.
I watched him and saw the slanting rays of the sun shining on carefully scraped spars and snowy canvas, but no funnel showed above his deck and no ports showed in the long, smooth stretch of his shining black sides.
Suddenly something fluttered in the wind. I looked harder, for we were so close now that the British ensign could be seen distinctly as it stood out straight in the breeze.
Yes, I was not mistaken. Surely he was springing his luff and the canvas was slatting. Then I saw something that made my heart jump.
Up he came to the wind, and as he did so I saw a line of even breaks in the smooth black hull as he dropped his ports outboard. Then a puff of white smoke spurted from his side, and by the time the report of the gun reached our ears the convicts saw an English gunboat awaiting the explanation of the flying of that black flag.
CHAPTER XXII.
It would be hard to describe the disorder and terror aboard the Arrow when the convicts realized their mistake.
Benson roared and raved like a madman, and I expected him to vent his anger upon Brown and myself at any moment for having deceived him. But he evidently believed that I was as much astonished as himself at the identity of the stranger. Not being a sailor-man, he did not understand the language of spars and canvas, and had no reason to think that my eyes were any better than his own.
At all events, even if he did intend to settle with me afterward, he now saw that his own life and the lives of his men depended on my being able to run the clipper clear of the English guns.