“Not quite sure, massa. If dey look dis way, den dey see us; but if dey not look dis way, den dey pass to westward one mile or perhaps two mile.”
At length Jack Handspike gave a loud shout. The schooner was coming up to the wind. Her foretopsail was thrown aback, and she lay hove-to. “We are seen! We are seen!” we exclaimed, one after the other. Presently a boat was lowered; she came gliding over the water towards us. As she approached we saw that she had a crew of dark, swarthy men, evidently not English. They hailed us in a foreign language. Senhor Silva replied, and a short conversation ensued.
“They are my countrymen,” he said, for he spoke English well. “The schooner is, I understand, a Portuguese man-of-war, and you will be kindly treated on board.”
“We are indeed fortunate,” said Stanley.
“Oh! say rather that God has been very merciful to us,” said Kate, looking out towards the beautiful vessel which rose and fell on the fast increasing seas at no great distance from us.
“The officer desires to know whether you would like to be towed on board or would prefer getting into the boat,” said Senhor Silva.
I was naturally anxious to preserve the raft, and begged that we might be towed; but Stanley requested that his sisters and the boys, at all events, should be taken into the boat. Senhor Silva joined them. We now proceeded rapidly towards the vessel. I saw Timbo and Jack eyeing her narrowly.
“She seems to be a fine man-of-war schooner,” I observed, “and a craft of which the slavers must have no little dread. We thought the Osprey a clipper, but yonder schooner, I suspect, could easily have walked round her.”
“Not know ’xactly,” observed Timbo. “She may be man-of-war schooner, but she very like some slavers I have seen.”
“Senhor Silva surely must know,” I observed, “and he told us positively that she was a man-of-war.”