Then there was a hail from the lugger.
“What game do you call this?”
“Soundings,” replied the lieutenant gruffly.
“Twenty fathom for miles up, and you can go close inshore if you like. It’s all alike.”
“P’raps so,” said the officer, “but my orders are to sound.”
“Sound away, then,” said the American sourly; “but do you want to be a week?” And he relapsed into silence, till about a couple of miles of the course of the wide river had been covered, sounding after sounding being taken, which proved the perfect truth of the American’s words.
Then the two cutters closed up and there was a brief order given by the first lieutenant, which resulted in the second cutter beginning to make its way back to where the sloop lay in the mouth of the estuary.
“What yer doing now?” came from the lugger.
“Sending word to the sloop that there’s plenty of water and that she may come on.”
“Course she may, mister,” grumbled the American. “Think I would ha’ telled yew if it hedn’t been all right? Yew Englishers are queer fish!”
“Yes,” said the lieutenant quietly. “We like to feel our way cautiously in strange waters.”
“Then I s’pose we may anchor now till your skipper comes? All right, then, on’y you’re not going to get up alongside of the schooner this side of to-morrow morning, I tell yew.”
“Very well, then, we must take the other side of her the next morning.”
The American issued an order of his own in a sulky tone of voice, lowering his sails; and then there was a splash as a grapnel was dropped over the side.
“Hadn’t yew better anchor?” he shouted good-humouredly now. “If yew don’t yew’ll go drifting backward pretty fast.”
For answer the lieutenant gave the order to lower the grapnel, and following the light splash and the running out of the line came the announcement of the sailor in charge as he checked the falling rope —
“No bottom here.”
“Takes a tidy long line here, mister,” came in the American’s sneering voice. “Guess your sloop’s keel won’t touch no bottom when she comes up.”
The lieutenant made no reply save by hoisting sail again and running to and fro around and about the anchored lugger, so as to pass the time in taking soundings, all of which went to prove that the river flowed sluggishly seaward with so little variation in the depth that the soundings were perfectly unnecessary.
It was tedious work, and a couple of hours passed before, pale and spirit-like at first, the other cutter came into sight in the pale moonlight, followed by the sloop, when the American had the lugger’s grapnel hauled up and ran his boat alongside of the first cutter.
“Look here,” he said angrily, “yewr skipper’s just making a fool of me, and I may as well run ashore to my plantation, for we shan’t do no good to-night.”
The man’s words were repeated when the sloop came up, and a short discussion followed, which resulted in the captain changing his orders.
“The man’s honest enough, Anderson,” he said, “and I must trust him.”
“What do you mean to do, then, sir?” said the first lieutenant, in a low tone.
“Let him pilot us to where the slaver lies.”
“With the lead going all the time, sir?”
“Of course, Mr Anderson,” said the captain shortly. “Do you think me mad?”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” replied the chief officer. “Perhaps it will be best.”
It proved to be best so far as the American’s temper was concerned, for upon hearing the captain’s decision, he took his place at the tiller of his lugger and led the way up the great river, followed by the stately sloop, whose lead as it was lowered from time to time told the same unvarying tale of deep water with a muddy bottom, while as the river’s winding course altered slightly, the width as far as it could be made out by the night glasses gave at least a couple of miles to the shore on either hand.
From time to time the first cutter, in obedience to the captain’s orders, ran forward from where she was sailing astern – the second cutter swinging now from the davits – crept up alongside of the lugger, and communicated with her skipper; and Murray’s doubts grew more faint, for everything the American said sounded plausible.
The night was far spent when another of these visits was paid, and as the coxswain hooked on alongside of the lugger the American leaned over to speak to the lieutenant, but turned first to Murray. “Well, young mister,” he said; “sleepy?”
“No, not at all,” was the reply. “Good boy; that’s right; but if your skipper hadn’t been so tarnation ’spicious yew might have had a good snooze. Wall, lieutenant, I was just waiting to see you, and I didn’t want to hail for fear our slave-hunting friend might be on his deck and hear us. Talk about your skipper being ’spicious, he’s nothing to him. The way in which the sound of a shout travels along the top of the water here’s just wonderful, and my hail might spyle the hull business.”
“But we’re not so near as that?” asked the lieutenant.
“Ain’t we? But we jest are! See that there bit of a glimpse of the mountains straight below the moon?”
“Yes,” said the lieutenant; “but I should have taken it for a cloud if you had not spoken.”
“That’s it,” said the skipper; “that’s where the river winds round at the foot, and the quieter yewr people keep now the better. Oh yes, yewr skipper has knocked all my calc’lations on the head, I can tell yew. That there sloop sails A1, and she’s done much more than I ’spected.”
“I’m glad of it,” said the lieutenant, while Murray’s spirits rose.
“So’m I,” said the man, with a chuckle; “and now it’s turned out all right I don’t mind ’fessing.”
“Confessing! What about?”
“Why, this here,” said the man. “Your skipper had wasted so much time with his soundings and messing about that I says to myself that if I tried to see the business out our Portygee friend would see me mixed up with it all and take the alarm. Yewr sloop wouldn’t get near him, for he’d run right up the river where you couldn’t follow, and he’d wait his time till you’d gone away, and then come down upon me as an informer. D’you know what that would mean for me then?”
“Not exactly,” replied the lieutenant, “but I can guess.”
“Zackly,” said the man, and he turned sharply upon Murray and made a significant gesture with one finger across his throat.
“Look here,” said the lieutenant, “don’t talk so much, my friend.”
“That’s just what I want yew to go and tell your skipper, mister. Tell him to give orders that his men are not to say a word above a whisper, for if it’s ketched aboard the schooner our friend will be off.”
“I will tell him,” said the lieutenant; “but now tell me what you mean to do?”
“To do? Jest this; put your vessel just where she can lie low and send three or four boats to steal aboard the schooner and take her. Yew can do that easy, can’t yew, without firing a shot?”
“Certainly,” said the lieutenant; “and what about you?”
“Me? Get outer the way as fast as I can, I tell yew. I’m not a fighting man, and I’ve got to think of what might happen if you let the slaver slip. See?”
“Yes, I see,” said the lieutenant; “but you need not be alarmed for yourself. Captain Kingsberry will take care that no harm shall befall you.”
“Think