"Did they lift the hatches to show the cargo to you?" he exclaimed.
I answered smartly, "No," perceiving that he was aware I had been below in the fore-part.
"How does my forecastle show to your English prejudice?" he said.
"Oh, mynheer!" said I, smiling, with a look at Imogene, whose eyes were fixed in the quarter over the stern into which Vanderdecken had been staring, "so far from Englishmen being prejudiced, at all events, in naval matters, we are continually taking ideas from other nations, particularly from the French, whose ships of war we imitate and admire. Perhaps," said I, "that is one of the reasons why we are incessantly capturing the vessels of that nation."
But the conceit was lost, because this man had flourished before we had become the terror of the French that our admirals have since made the English flag to be.
Imogene cried out in Dutch, "Do you know, Mr. Fenton, that there is a sail in sight?"
My heart gave a bound, and following the indication of her ivory-white forefinger, which pointed directly astern, I saw the tiny gleam of what was unquestionably a ship's canvas, resembling the curved tip of a gull's wing.
"Ay, to be sure, yonder's a sail!" I exclaimed, after keeping my eyes fixed upon it a while to make sure, and I added in Dutch, "Which way, madam, does the captain say she is steering?"
"Directly after us," she replied.
"Judge for yourself, sir," said Vanderdecken, motioning with his hand toward a telescope that stood against the deck-house.