The man who had motioned to us, and whom I took to be master of the ship, stood aft, in company with two others and a woman, and gesticulated very vehemently, sometimes pointing at us and sometimes at the sea.
His meaning was intelligible enough to me, but I was not disheartened; for though it was plain that he was representing the waves as too rough to permit them to lower a boat, which was a conclusive sign, at least, that those whom he addressed were urging him to save us; yet his refusal was no proof that he did not mean to keep by us until it should be safe to send a boat to our ship.
"What will they do, Mr. Royle?" exclaimed Miss Robertson, speaking in a voice sharpened by the terrible excitement under which she laboured.
"They will not leave us," I answered. "They are men—and it is enough that they should have seen you among us to make them stay. Oh!" I cried, "it is hard that those waves do not subside! but patience. The wind is lulling—we have a long spell of daylight before us. Would to God she were an English ship!—I should have no fear then."
I again pointed the glass at the vessel.
The captain was still declaiming and gesticulating; but the men had withdrawn from the quarter-boat, and were watching us over the bulwarks.
Since the boat was not to be lowered, why did he continue arguing?
I watched him intently, watched him until my eyes grew bleared and the metal rim of the telescope seemed to burn into the flesh around my eye.
I put the glass down and turned to glance at the flags streaming over my head.
"There she goes! I knew it. They never shows no pity!" exclaimed the boatswain, in a deep voice.