“A sail, a sail!” he exclaimed; “a big ship, too, I suspect.”
I looked in the direction in which he pointed away to windward, where the topsails of a ship appeared rising above the horizon; from their squareness I judged her to be a man-of-war. The rising sun just tinged the weather-side of her canvas, as she bore down on us with a streak of light which made her stand out in bold relief against the deep blue sky. The pirate crew had, of course, seen her from aloft long before we could have done so. She was welcome in every way, as she would probably enable us to get into port. The only provoking part of the business was, that the pirate would in all probability get away with impunity. Had she but come on the scene an hour earlier, she would, probably, have been down upon us before either we or the pirate could have seen her, and would most assuredly have nabbed our amigo.
“Never mind,” said Porpoise, “the fellow can scarcely get out of the Straits, even if he wishes it, and if I ever fall in with him within the boundaries of the Mediterranean, I have no fear of not knowing him again; we shall hear more of him by and by, depend on it.”
Our fighting had given us an appetite, so we went to breakfast with no little satisfaction, though we had not much time to spare for it. Bubble would not acknowledge that his wound was of consequence, though he let me look to it, as I did to the hurts of the other poor fellows who were hit. From the appearance they presented, I was truly glad that there was a good prospect of their having surgical aid without delay. They did not know, as I did, that their wounds would be far more painful in a few hours than they were at that time, so they made very light of them. As the stranger drew nearer, we made her out to be a sloop-of-war, and the ensign flying from her peak showed her to be British; she had been standing so as to pass a little way to the westward of us. When, however, she made us out, which she did not do till she was quite close to us, she altered her course and was soon hove-to, a few cables’ length to leeward. A boat was lowered, and, with an officer in the stern-sheets, came pulling towards us.
“What in the name of wonder is the matter?” exclaimed the officer, standing up and surveying us with no little surprise.
“Why, Sprat, the matter is that we have been dismasted in a white squall, which would have sent many a craft to the bottom,” answered Porpoise, who in the officer recognised an old shipmate; “we since then have been made a target of by a rascally pirate, whose mastheads have scarcely yet sunk beneath the horizon.”
“If that is the case, we must see if we cannot catch her,” answered Lieutenant Sprat, who was second lieutenant of the corvette.
“What, sir! leave us rolling helplessly about here like an empty tub?” exclaimed Hearty, in a dolorous tone. “But never mind, if you think you can catch her, I dare say we can take care of ourselves.”
“I’ll report the state of things to Captain Arden, and learn what he wishes,” quoth Lieutenant Sprat, as he pulled back to his ship.
In another minute the corvette’s jolly-boat was seen leaving her side, while she, putting up her helm, stood away in the direction the pirate had taken. The jolly-boat soon came alongside, with a midshipman and six men.