‘Please, take this glass,’ said he, thrusting the telescope into my hand; ‘and look at that there boat, and tell me what you think.’
The smooth, swift sliding of the Lady Blanche over the level surface of sea that was running in fire and foam lines to the brushing of the merry breeze and the sparkling of the soaring sun, had closed us rapidly with the boat ahead since Miss Temple and I left the deck. The little fabric was now scarcely more than a mile on the bow, and the captain’s glass, when I put it to my eye, brought her as close to me as if she were no further off than our forecastle. She was a large, carvel-built longboat; one of those round-bowed, broad-beamed structures which in the olden days used to stand in chocks betwixt a ship’s foremast and galley, with often another boat stored inside of her, unless she was used to keep sheep or other live-stock in. She was deep in the water, and as much of her hull as was visible was of a dingy sallow white. She showed a broad square of dark old lug, before which she was running with some show of nimbleness. She seemed to be crowded with men, and even whilst I stood looking at her through the glass, I counted no less than twenty-seven persons. They were all looking our way, and though it was scarcely possible to define individual faces amid such a yellow huddle of countenances, I could yet manage to determine a prevailing piratic expression of the true sort, suggested not so much by the vagueness of swarthy cheek and shaggy brow as by the singularity of the fellows’ apparel—the flapping sombrero, the red sash, the blue shirt, with other details—which but very faintly corresponded indeed with one’s notion of the coarse homely attire of the merchant sailor.
Captain Braine’s eyes were fixed upon me as I turned to him. ‘What do you think of her, sir?’ said he.
‘I don’t like the look of those fellows at all,’ I answered. ‘I would not mind making a bet that they are a portion of the crew of the privateering brig from whose hull you rescued us yesterday morning.’
‘Just the idea that occurred to me,’ he cried. He levelled the glass again. ‘A boatful of rascals, sir. Armed to the teeth, I daresay, and on the lookout for some such a vessel as mine to seize and get away back to their own waters in. And yet, it is awful, too, to think that the creatures may be in want of water. What’s to be done? I can’t allow them to board: and I’m not going to heave to, to give ’em a chance of doing so.’
‘We’re overhauling them fast,’ said I. ‘Best plan perhaps, captain, will be to hail them as we slide past and ascertain their wants, if we can understand their lingo; and if they need water, there’s nothing to be done but to send some adrift for them to pick up. But for God’s sake, sir, don’t let them come aboard. They look as devilish a lot of cut-throats as ever I saw; and besides the safety of our lives and of the ship, we have this lady to consider.’
Captain Braine listened to me with his eyes fixed upon the boat.
‘She can’t hook on at this,’ said he, as if thinking aloud; ‘we should tow her under water at such a pace. By heavens,’ he shouted, with a wild look coming into his face, ‘if she attempts to sheer alongside, I’ll give her the stem!’ and springing with the agility of a monkey upon the rail, he grasped a backstay, and stood in a posture for hailing the boat as we swept past.
Forward, the seamen had quitted the jobs they were upon, and were staring open-mouthed from the forecastle rail. I picked up the glass again to look at the crowd, and every face in the lens was now as distinct as Miss Temple’s who stood beside me. An uglier, more ferocious-looking set of men never stepped the deck of a picaroon. I had not the least doubt whatever that they were a portion of the crew of the brig. Indeed, I seemed to have some recollection of the boat, for I remembered, whilst examining the brig from the poop of the Indiaman, that I had been struck by the unusual size of her longboat, and that the colour of her was the sallow pea-soup tint of the fabric yonder. There were several chocolate-coloured faces amongst the little crowd; here and there, a coal-black countenance with a frequent glitter of earrings and gleam of greasy ringlets. Many of them eyed us over the low gunwale under the sharp of their hands; one stood erect on the thwart through which the mast was stepped, clasping the spar with his arm, and apparently waiting to hail us. The steersman watched us continuously, and now and again the boat’s head would slightly fall off to a sneaking movement of the helm, as though to some notion of edging down upon us without attracting our observation. But the barque’s keen stem was ripping through the water as the jaws of a pair of shears drive through a length of sailcloth. I had no fear of the boat hooking on; she would have to manœuvre under our bows to do that, and it needed but a little twirl of the spokes of our wheel to drive her into staves and to send her people bobbing and drowning into our wake.
‘Boat ahoy!’ shouted the captain with such delivery of voice as I should have thought impossible in so narrow shouldered a man.