Both officers were looking through their glasses at the brig. Suddenly the lieutenant showed his teeth in a grin, while the captain flushed to a deeper red.
“That’s Hairy Hudson on the afterrail, sir.”
“The low, impertinent blackguard! He’ll play some other antics before we are done with him. Could you reach him with the long eighteen, Mr. Smeaton?”
“Another cable length will do it, sir.”
The brig yawed as they spoke, and as she came round, a spurt of smoke whiffed out from her quarter. It was a pure piece of bravado, for the gun could scarce carry half way. Then with a jaunty swing the little ship came into the wind again and shot round a fresh curve of the winding channel.
“The water’s shoaling rapidly, sir,” reported the second lieutenant.
“There’s six fathoms, by the chart.”
“Four, by the lead, sir.”
“When we clear this point we shall see how we lie. Ha! I thought as much! Lay her to, Mr. Wharton. Now we have got her at our mercy.”
The frigate was quite out of sight of the sea now, at the head of this river-like estuary. As she came round the curve the two shores were seen to converge at a point about a mile distant. In the angle, as near shore as she could get, the brig was lying with her broadside towards her pursuer, and a wisp of black cloth streaming from her mizzen. The lean lieutenant, who had reappeared upon deck with a cutlass strapped to his side and two pistols rammed into his belt, peered curiously at the ensign.