The smugglers played us all sorts of tricks, and I must own we were more than once taken in by them. On one occasion, while it was blowing very fresh, a cutter hailed us and told us that she had just passed over a number of tubs, pointing out the direction where we should find them. While we were engaged in picking them up, she made sail for the shore; and we afterwards learned, to our mortification, that she had run a very large cargo of contraband goods.
Thanks to Larry’s instructions, as I was very handy in a boat, and understood the duties of a midshipman tolerably well, I was, to my great delight, soon placed in charge of one of the gigs.
A few days after the occurrence I have described, when we were about mid Channel, we observed a vessel whose appearance was suspicious. It had just gone two bells, in the forenoon watch. It was blowing pretty fresh from the south-west, and there was a lop of a sea, but not enough to endanger a boat. We made sail towards the stranger, and as we neared her we perceived that she was veering about, apparently under no control.
“Her main-boom has gone,” observed Hanks, “and there doesn’t seem to be a soul on deck; her crew have been knocked or washed overboard, I suspect.”
“I am afraid so,” said the Commander. “She looks to me like a pilot-boat. She was probably struck by a squall, with only a couple of hands left in her.”
“Lubberly work somehow, at all events,” remarked Hanks.
In another ten minutes we were close to the pilot-boat, and the cutter being hove-to, a boat was lowered, and Hanks and I were ordered to go in her and see what was the matter. When we gained the deck, we found that the boom had knocked away part of the bulwarks and companion-hatch, and committed other damage. The first thing we did was to lower down the mainsail and to secure the boom, which task, after some difficulty, we accomplished. We next set about searching the vessel, thinking that no one was on board. The main hatch was on, but there was a little cabin aft, with a small stove in it, and six berths, in which the crew lived. There was a table in the cabin, and on it were a couple of tumblers, a thick-necked, square-sided glass bottle, on its side, a broken pipe, and wet marks, and ashes of tobacco, as if people had very lately been drinking there.
“What’s wrong here?” said Hanks. “It could not have been long ago since some one was on board.”
Our eyes soon began to get accustomed to the sombre light of the cabin, which was darkened by the mainsail hanging over it. I happened to stoop down, and my eyes glanced under the table, where we had not before looked.
“Hillo,” I exclaimed, “why here are a man’s legs.”