‘I say, Wilfrid,’ cried I, ‘it doesn’t seem as if those chaps meant to let that boat approach them.’
‘What’s to be done?’ he exclaimed.
I looked at Finn. ‘If they don’t pick those two fellows up,’ said I, ‘we shall have to do so, that’s cocksure. But they are a kind of beauties whose room is better than their company, I think, as the crew would find out when we approached the equinoctial waters.’
‘Ay, sir,’ cried Finn, ‘it would never do to have the likes o’ them aboard, your honour,’ addressing Sir Wilfrid. ‘No, no, the brig must pick ’em up. Dang their cruel hearts! I never seed a scurvier trick played at sea in all my days.’
‘But what’s to be done?’ cried Wilfrid impatiently and irritably. ‘Could one of our boats overhaul the brig and put the two fellows aboard her?’
Finn shook his head.
‘See here, Wilf,’ said I: ‘suppose we let slip a blank shot at her out of that eighteen-pounder yonder? The dirty herd of scow-bankers may take us to be a man of war. And another idea on top of this!’ cried I, bursting into a laugh. ‘Is there anything black aboard that we can fly at the masthead? It should prove a warrant of our honesty that must puzzle them gloriously.’
‘Would a black shawl do, Mr. Monson?’ said Miss Jennings.
‘The very thing,’ said I, ‘if it’s big enough.’