Saltwell saw that his presence did more harm than good to his wounded friend, as it induced him to talk; so, bidding him try to sleep, he left the cabin. As he reached the deck, he saw that the first faint indications of the coming dawn had appeared in the eastern horizon—not streaks of light exactly, but a less dense gloom, which could best be distinguished by contrasting it with the darkness of the opposite horizon, and, at that instant, the flash of a gun was seen in the same quarter, and the sound came booming over the water towards them.
“Ah! there comes the cutter,” he exclaimed; “Tompion is firing his brass gun to draw our attention. Don’t fire again, Mr Black, it is not necessary, and will disturb Mr Linton, but burn a blue light—it will prevent their going out of their course, for it will be some time before they will otherwise be able to distinguish us.”
The gunner had the blue light already, expecting to be called on to use it, and the next instant a lurid glare illumined the whole ship; the sails, the spars, and the countenances of the people, all assumed a sepulchral hue, which gave her the appearance of some phantom bark, such as has appeared to the excited imagination of many a seaman in his wandering through those distant and torrid climes, whose pestilential vapours, rising from the overteeming earth, fever his blood and cut short his span of life.
It had scarcely done burning before another gun was fired; but whether as a signal, or for any other reason, it was, at first, impossible to say, till several others followed in rapid succession.
“It must be a summons to us,” observed the first lieutenant to the master. “Fill the fore-topsail, and let fall the fore-sail—we will, at all events, stand on as close as we can to them.”
The breeze, which sent the Ione along, was very light, so that some time elapsed before she neared the spot whence the firing had been supposed to proceed. Saltwell was on the point of ordering another blue light to be burned, when a loud hail was heard, and, directly afterwards, the boats were seen approaching as fast as the weary crews could send them through the water.
“Has Mr Linton got back alive?” were the first words heard spoken by Tompion.
“Yes—yes, all right,” was the answer.
“Thank Heaven for that!” he exclaimed; and, as soon as the cutter ran alongside, he jumped on deck and went aft to report himself as come on board.
“I hope you do not think that I have done wrong, sir,” he said, when he had finished his account of what had occurred. “I fully thought we should capture the mistico, and I could not tell but what some of our friends had been taken on board her.”