"Starboard it is."
"Steer South South East."
"Ay, ay, sir." And the ship's course was thus altered two points.
This order lowered Dodd fifty per cent in Mr. Sharpe's estimation. He held his tongue as long as he could: but at last his surprise and dissatisfaction burst out of him, "Won't that bring him out on us?"
"Very likely, sir," replied Dodd.
"Begging your pardon, captain, would it not be wiser to keep our course, and show the blackguard we don't fear him?"
"When we do? Sharpe, he has made up his mind an hour ago whether to lie still, or bite; my changing my course two points won't change his mind; but it may make him declare it; and I must know what he does intend, before I run the ship into the narrows ahead."
"Oh, I see," said Sharpe, half convinced.
The alteration in the Agra's course produced no movement on the part of the mysterious schooner. She lay to under the land still, and with only a few hands on deck, while the Agra edged away from her and entered the straits between Long Island and Point Leat, leaving the schooner about two miles and a half distant to the N.W.
Ah! The stranger's deck swarms black with men.