After this rebuff Ralph asked no more questions of his superior, but he faithfully obeyed the injunction as to "keeping a bright lookout."
CHAPTER XI.
Aboard the Curlew.
They steamed along between low marshy banks for an hour or two, then the river began to widen into an irregularly shaped bay. Sundry low lying islands, covered with strange semi-tropic vegetation, rose up seaward, and by and by a sound as of muffled thunder could be heard.
As they passed old Fort Pulaski, Ralph ventured to question the pilot on the roof. This grizzled boatman was gruff, but obliging.
"It's the roar of the breakers, you hear," said he. "That is an old fort. Good for a siege once—no good now. And yonder—do you see that low lying, black schooner under the lee of Tybee light?"
"Where?" inquired Ralph, leaning out of the little pilot house window.
The pilot pointed, but it was quite a minute before the boy could distinguish the vessel. When he did, all his unaccustomed eye could make out, was a narrow dark line surmounted by a dim tracery of spars that were barely relieved by the white beach behind.
Still further beyond rose the towering white lighthouse.