Julia continued to sit by her sleeping lover's side for more than half an hour, leaving him once only to see to the galley fire. When again she arose to attend to the fire the dog stood up and shook himself and sprang upon the taffrail to take a look around, and before Julia had stepped ten paces the noble animal was sounding in deep tones his report of a ship in sight.
The noise awoke Hardy, who started and stood up, and Julia stayed where she was to look at the sea.
Nearly right abeam, in the midst of the lifting bright weather whose suffusion of radiance was over the mastheads, was visible the feathering of a steamer's smoke.
"It is something coming our way," said Hardy to Julia, and he took the glass, and pointed it.
His hands trembled, and he steadied the tubes by grasping the vang of the gaff with them. After a long look—Julia was at his side—he said:
"She rises fast. By her square yards I take her to be a man-of-war. If she is British she will be the help I have sometimes prayed for."
He put down the glass, bent on the Red Ensign Jack down, and ran it aloft.
"I will get you some hot coffee," said Julia. "Do you feel rested a little?"
"I am good for an eight hours' spell," he replied, but he did not look so.