The Spaniards splashed along in their passion and fury of distress. Their boat was already a toy; they themselves dolls. They got alongside the schooner, and, seizing the glass, I watched them scramble over the rail, and continued to watch. They went up to the three men on the quarter-deck, and both fell to violently gesticulating and pointing at us. I could no longer tell which was which; one of them shook his fist at us, the other motioned with violent dramatic gestures toward the hold of the schooner. I might swear he was telling the men about the dollars, and furiously motioned that we might guess, if we watched him through the glass, what he was talking about.
Bol hauled the ensign down, and called to a man to roll it up.
“Vhas dot a neat little shob, Mr. Fielding?” said he, coming and standing beside me.
“Would not the schooner have taken the men without all this neatness?” I answered.
“Maybe and maybe not. Ve vhas not going to reesk it.”
“You have lost the boat. Why did you require the lady to leave the deck?”
“She vhas soft-hearted, und dis shob vhas to be neat und quiet. Look!” he roared suddenly; “dere swings der topsails. Down coomes der flag. Gif me der glass, Mr. Fielding.” He put his eye to the tube, and in a moment bawled, “Der boat drops astern; she vhas empty.”
He pitched the glass on to the skylight and uttered an extraordinary roar of laughter.
Half an hour later the schooner was no more than a shaft of white light down in the west, with Yan Bol singing out orders to trim the sails of the brig and head for the boat, whose bearings had been taken, that we might recover her.