“What do you make that out to be, Green?” asked Higson, the officer of the watch, who had been looking through his telescope towards the shore. Green turned his glass in the same direction.
“A boat! and she must be coming towards us,” he answered, after the delay of a minute or so.
Higson sent him to report the circumstance to the commander, who at once came on deck. Various were the surmises as to what could bring the boat off to them.
“She must have had a long pull of it, at all events,” observed Higson.
“Perhaps she had the land wind, which we don’t feel out here?” said Green.
“Little doubt about that. She must have some urgent cause for coming out thus far to us,” remarked Murray. “Lower the gig, Mr Higson, and go and meet her,” he added immediately afterwards. “The people in the boat are evidently tired with their long pull, and make but slow progress.”
The gig’s crew called away—she was lowered, and Higson pulled off towards the approaching boat. Meantime, Murray walked the deck with impatient steps. Several times he stopped, and raised his glass to his eye, watching her eagerly. At length he saw that the gig had reached her. The two boats were alongside each other for a minute, and then the gig came rowing rapidly back, leaving the other behind. Murray watched her.
“There must be something of importance to make Higson hurry back at that rate,” he said to himself. “He has brought the people from the boat, I see.”
As the gig drew nearer, he saw Higson stand up and wave his handkerchief. In a few minutes more she was near enough for him to distinguish those in her.
“Is it possible, or do my eyes deceive me?” he exclaimed. “There’s a lad in a midshipman’s uniform. If he is not Gerald Desmond, he is wonderfully like him.”