"I theenk," said Marat, "thad she go aroun' thees island. She make faster sail thad way, and Duran weel think we have not so much chance to head him off thad way—if we should happen to come after heem."
That first day, while the Pearl plowed steadily eastward, the coast always in view, Norris busied himself with repairs on his gun-carriage. The second day broke with no sight of the Orion. And this day Norris gave to polishing his brass cannon; a job that took grit and elbow-grease, for that barrel carried the accumulations of many years of exposure to all weathers.
That afternoon he got out powder and a ball, and charged the gun, and ten minutes before we were to turn on the starboard tack, he set adrift a little raft on which he had rigged a square bit of canvas. And then when we got round on that tack, he called Rufe, who came running with a red hot poker. Norris sighted the gun on that raft, the while shouting orders to the man at the helm. A touch of the red poker, and "Boom!" We saw the splash, perhaps forty feet to the right of the raft, which now floated some three hundred yards distant.
"If that had been the Orion," said Norris, "I'd have got her in the bows. That's a good enough shot, I'll say."
It was near nine of the following morning that we sighted the sails of a vessel. There was excitement on the Pearl. In two hours we could see a little of the hull. She was a schooner.
"I think thad the Orion," said Captain Marat then. The impulsive Norris had declared it that vessel from the first. Finally came an experience I dread to recollect. We had passed the eastern end of the island, and were abreast of some lesser islands. The schooner ahead was on the starboard tack. We held also on the same tack. The other schooner went about on the port tack. We followed suit. In half an hour black clouds suddenly rose out of the southwest. They were preceded by gray clouds that curled like billows.
Captain Marat at once shortened sail—reefed to the uttermost. The schooner ahead went about and made for a small island to the east. The Pearl did the same.
The wind struck us. Rapidly it increased in fury. Captain Marat got a loop of rope round the mainmast, whence he called his orders to Norris and two sailors at the wheel. I never had realized that a vessel could skim the sea with such terrific speed. Spray hissed over the deck. The masts bent; the schooner groaned under the strain. The tempest howled in the rigging. Belated birds flew past, shoreward.
Rapidly that island loomed ahead in the semi-night. Marat used his glasses.
"Hard on!" he yelled at last.