"Go up on that point, you foremast hand—I can't remember your thundering name—and watch the cutter while me and the mate eats. After that one of us'll relieve ye. Ef she moves, or even shows black smoke, you let me know, d'ye hear?"
Alaric managed to secure a couple of hard biscuits with which to comfort his lonely watch, and then Bonny set him ashore.
Picking up his bag and carrying it with him, the boy clambered to the point, and selecting a place from which he could plainly see the cutter, began his watch, at the same time munching his dry biscuit with infinite relish. Much of the water intervening between him and the cutter was hidden from view by nearby undergrowth, and the necessity for scanning it never occurred to him.
After a while Bonny came to relieve him and allow him to go to breakfast.
"Have you really made up your mind to desert the ship?" asked the young mate, noticing that Alaric had his bag with him.
"Yes, I really have," answered the other, "and you will come with me, won't you, Bonny?"
"I don't know," replied the latter, undecidedly. "Somehow I can't make it seem right to desert Captain Duff and leave him in a fix. Seems to me we ought to stay with him until he gets back to Victoria, anyway. Besides, I'd lose my wages, and there must be nearly thirty dollars due me by this time. But you go along to your breakfast, and after that we'll talk it all over. Haven't seen anything, have you?"
"No, not a sign, but— Hello! What's that?"
"Caught, as sure as you're born!" cried Bonny, in a tone of suppressed excitement.
Then the two lads, peering through the bushes, watched a boat, flying the flag of the United States Revenue Marine and filled with sturdy bluejackets, enter the cove and dash alongside the smuggler Fancy.