“Why, sir, maybe I’m wrong, and maybe I’m right; but if I’m right, then I take it she’s no other than the thirty-two pounder frigate, ‘Thetis.’ I served aboard her better nor twelve months, so I don’t deserve to have eyes in my head if I shouldn’t know her again,” answered Job.
“I think that you are very likely to be right, Job, and I’ll trust that you are,” said Mr Calder. “Take a couple of reefs in the mainsail as you hoist it, lads. The sky gives promise of a blowing night, and we shall do well if we can have a stout ship under our feet.”
As the lieutenant was speaking, a heavy squall passed over the boat, which, had her sails been set, she would have felt severely. As it was, the spray which it carried drove over her in thick masses, as she drifted before it. Dark clouds were breaking up heavily to the southward, while others drove across the sky, their outer edges glowing, like red-hot coals, with the beams of the setting sun. The squall, however, passed away, sail was made, and the boat sprang briskly over the rising seas towards the frigate. All were now as anxious to be seen by those on board her, as they were before to escape observation. It was very evident that a storm was brewing, and a pretty heavy one—such a gale as the French fishing-boat they were in could scarcely weather. Every instant the wind increased, and the seas rose higher and higher. The frigate, it was very probable, was outward bound, for as the wind got round she trimmed sails and steered to the westward. The boat was now close hauled. If not seen by the frigate, it was scarcely to be hoped that she would cut her off on the other tack. The gloom of evening was coming on also, causing the small sails of the boat to be less discernible.
“They’ll not see us,” sighed Rawson. “And as to this wretched little craft living out such a night as we are going to have, that’s a sheer impossibility.”
“The craft has carried us thus far in safety, and may carry us into Penzance or Falmouth harbour, I hope, even if we do miss the frigate,” observed Morton. “We shouldn’t so mistrust Providence, I think.”
“You think, you youngster!” said Rawson, contemptuously. “You haven’t been tried as I have.”
“But Rawson, suppose we are preserved. What will you Bay then?”
“That we have obtained more than we deserve,” answered the old mate, as if involuntarily.
“The frigate sees us,” shouted Job Truefitt, from forward, making use of a very common nautical figure of speech. “There’s port the helm—square away the yards—she’ll be down to us in a jiffy.”
“Time she was too,” observed Rawson, and he was right, for the gloom was increasing, the rising sea was tumbling and pitching the boat about, and even with two reefs down she could scarcely look up to her canvas.