A signal of flags was run aloft to the end of the mizzen gaff: the string of gay colours painted the wind and made a holiday figure of the ship in a moment. When the stranger perceived our signal she hauled down the red flag of the English merchant service which had been flying at her trysail peak ever since we had been able to distinguish it, and hoisted a long, thin streamer called an answering pennant.
'All right!' exclaimed Captain Burke, putting down the glass he had been viewing through. 'She is an Englishman, and is, no doubt, bound home. Get your letter ready, Miss Otway, and if that brig is for England I will send it across to her.'
I ran to my cabin. The mere thought of communicating with home filled me with excitement. This, though we had been some weeks at sea, was the first opportunity for sending a letter home that had occurred. And then little things on the ocean stir and move one greatly. Life is so dull that the merest trifle is important, and what would scarcely be noticeable ashore takes the aspect of a wonder.
I had kept my journal punctually down to the preceding evening, and had now only to write that a brig was approaching and would take the letter, and send a thousand kisses to father and to Archie. I added that I was happy and greatly improved in health. I lingered over this bit of writing. It was like holding on to the dear hands of those I addressed.
When I had made an end, I went on deck with the letter. The brig had slided abreast of us by this time: she looked a very smart little vessel, with sharp bows and raking masts, very lofty. She had backed her topsail as we had ours, and the two vessels lay within speaking distance, bowing to one another with all imaginable civility. I laughed to notice this; you would have thought them old acquaintances who couldn't salute each other too often for delight in this meeting.
'Brig ahoy!' hailed Captain Burke.
'Hallo!' shouted a man standing a head and shoulders above the bulwark rail with a staring negro at the wheel, showing a little past him, whenever the brig swayed, her sand-coloured decks to us.
'What ship is that, and where are you bound for?'
'"The Queen o' the Night" from Mauritius vur Liverpool, a hundred and ten days out. What ship's yon?'
The information was fully given, and then Captain Burke bawled out to know if the other would carry a letter home for him?