Saltwell himself went aloft to ascertain more clearly her character, and soon returned with the report that she was a mistico beating up for the raft.
“She will be up to it, too, sir, I am afraid, long before we can reach it,” he observed. “Shall we get a gun ready to fire, sir?”
“In mercy’s name, no!” exclaimed Fleetwood. “We do not know what innocent people might be injured.”
“I meant to fire at the mistico, sir,” said the lieutenant. “She is, I am certain, a piratical craft, and if those on the raft are of the same kidney, she will assist them to escape; or if not, her people will rob and murder them under our very eyes.”
“You forget, Mr Saltwell, that we cannot be certain of that craft being a pirate, and till we are, we have no right to fire,” said the captain. “Besides, our shot might strike the raft, or the pirates, if such they are, might fire on it in revenge.”
The cry of “a sail on the larboard bow” interrupted the conversation, and, as the glasses were turned in the direction indicated, the sails of a lofty ship were seen appearing above a headland, which ran out from the east end of the small island which lay before them. The mistico could not yet see the stranger, so she stood on fearlessly towards the raft. The people on the raft were then seen to quit it, and to go on board the mistico, which directly kept away, and ran to the westward, evidently to avoid the stranger which she must have just then seen for the first time.
The ship made the number of the Venus, and after standing on some little time, tacked and stood towards the Ione. The mistico, it must be understood, was now about a mile from the shore, and little more than the same distance from the west end of the island, while the Ione was another mile to windward of her, so that if she sailed well, she might easily get round the point, and then by keeping away among the cluster of islands and rocks further to the south, very likely escape altogether.
To avoid this, Fleetwood made the signal to the Venus to bear up and run round to the south end of the island, to intercept the chase, trusting to his senior officer following his wishes. Old Rawson was not a man to stand on etiquette, and if a midshipman had signalised him he would have obeyed the order, and he instantly put up his helm, and ran back again out of sight, though the mistico was already too far to the westward to profit by the change by dodging round in the same direction.
“We must leave the raft to take its chance, sir, while we chase the mistico, I suppose,” asked Saltwell.
“Yes, by all means—haul up a couple of points on the starboard tack.”