‘Neither!’ she repeated, breathing with difficulty. ‘Oh, Mr. Dugdale, what are we to do?’
‘Why, get on board of her, in the name of God,’ I cried—‘giving Him thanks when we are there.’
‘But she may—she will be’—she paused, unable to articulate: then with an effort: ‘She may be going to another part of the world.’
‘It matters not,’ I answered, observing with rapture that the vessel was heading more directly for us; ‘she will put us aboard something homeward bound. Will not that be better than stopping here, Miss Temple?’
‘Oh yes, oh yes!’ she cried; ‘but if we waited a little, the Indiaman might find us.’
‘Heaven forbid! we have waited long enough.’
So speaking, I rushed forward, picked up the handspike with which I had beaten upon the forecastle wall, secured a blanket to it, and, dancing aft, fell to flourishing it with all my might. Very slowly the vessel came floating down upon us with a light swaying of her trucks from side to side, and a tender twinkling of the folds of her lower canvas, which there was not weight enough in the wind to hold distended. Her hull was exceedingly graceful, and of a milky whiteness; and, as she leaned from us on some wide fold of the breathing waters, she exposed a hand’s-breadth of burnished copper, which put a wonderful quality of beauty and delicacy into the whole fabric, as though she were a little model in frosted silver.
‘Before she takes us on board, Mr. Dugdale,’ exclaimed Miss Temple, ‘will not you mount the rigging to see if there is another ship in sight that may prove the Indiaman?’
‘But even if the Indiaman were in sight,’ said I, ‘we should seize this the first of our opportunities to escape from this floating tomb. For heaven’s sake, let us get aboard that fellow!’
As I spoke, I seized the handspike again and frantically flourished it. All this while there was a column of smoke ascending steadily from my fire of rugs and mats and darkening the sea over the starboard bow. I was now able to make out that the coming craft was a barque. My eyes were glued to her; my heart thumped furiously; the wildest alternations of joy and dread seized me. Suppose she should prove some foreigner in charge of a man indifferent to human life, some cold-blooded miscreant who had shifted his helm merely to satisfy his curiosity, and who, on perceiving that the smoke was no more than a signal, and that the wreck floated high, should slide quietly on and leave us to our fate? Such things had been; such things were again and again happening. As she drew with a snail-like motion abreast without touching a brace, without any signs of movement about her deck, my eyes turned dim; I feared I was about to swoon.