'I like that idea,' said Captain Parry; 'it would save bloodshed. We want nothing but the young lady. They should be glad to get easily rid of her as a witness. If they are short of food, we can supply them with stores enough to keep them going for a time that would allow of a reasonable chance of their being rescued.'
'They'll want provisions, anyhow,' said the mate. 'Stove timbermen float on their cargo. You need to dive to get at the grub in those derelicts. I'm counting upon hunger courting them into the schooner without obliging us to try what coaxing them with four men and two pistols is going to do.'
They went on deck, and stared at the sea-line through glasses. A little before noon, just at the moment when Mr. Blundell was coming out of his cabin with his sextant, a man stationed aloft on the look-out hailed him.
'What is it?' shouted Blundell, springing through the companion-hatch.
'There is a black object away down upon the port-bow. It looks like a boat.'
'How does it bear on the bow?' cried Blundell to the little figure aloft, a sailor with a face set in black whiskers.
He looked to tremble in the heat up there, and his shape, as he stood erect to the height of the truck, seemed shot with the lights of several dyes, and against a swollen heap of cloud past him he showed like a coloured daguerreotype.
'About two points,' was his answer.
Mr. Blundell shifted his helm for it, but, whatever it might be, it was not yet visible from the deck. The mate got an observation of the sun, and went below to work it out. When he returned he found Captain Parry examining a dark object on the bow with a telescope.
'It's a ship's boat most unquestionably,' said the captain, turning to Mr. Blundell.