‘Are you a sailor?’ he roared.
‘Oh, say yes, say yes!’ cried Miss Temple; ‘he may be in want of men.’
‘Ay, ay,’ I cried; ‘I’m a sailor.’
‘What sort of sailor?’
‘I belonged to an Indiaman.’
‘Afore the mast?’
‘No, no! send a boat—I’ll tell you all about it.’
He descended from the rail and apparently addressed the man that stood near, who walked to the companion-hatch and returned with a telescope; the other took it from him, then knelt down to rest the glass on the rail, and surveyed us through the lenses for at least a couple of minutes, after which he rose, returned the glass to his companion, and flourished his hand at us. I watched, utterly unable to guess what was next to happen. My fears foreboded the departure of the barque, and the impatience in me worked like madness in my blood. But mercifully we were not to be kept long in this intolerable state of suspense. A few minutes after the man, whom I supposed to be the captain, had motioned to us with his arm, a number of sailors came to the davits at the foremost extremity of the raised after-deck, where swung a small white boat of a whaling pattern. Four of them entered her, and she sank slowly to the water’s edge, where she was promptly freed from her tackles, and three oars thrown over. The fellow in the stern sheets was the man who had handed the glass to the other. The oarsmen pulled swiftly, and in a very short time the little craft was alongside.
‘Only two of ye, is it?’ said the fellow who grasped the tiller, a short, square, sun-blackened, coarse-looking sailor.
‘Only two,’ I cried.