The heat was terrible, and the men were congratulating themselves on the fact that the wind held out and saved them from the painful task of rowing hard in the blistering sunshine.
Murray’s duty was to handle the tiller lines as he sat in the stern sheets beside the first lieutenant, and after being out close upon three hours he began to feel that he could keep awake no longer – for his companion sat silent and stern, his gaze bent upon the dark green shore, searching vainly for the hidden opening – and in a half torpid state the midshipman was about to turn to his silent companion and ask to be relieved of the lines, when he uttered a gasp of thankfulness, and, forgetting discipline, gripped the officer by the knee.
“What the something, Mr Murray, do you mean by that?” cried the lieutenant angrily.
“Look!” was the reply, accompanied by a hand stretched out with pointing index finger.
“Stand by, my lads, ready to pull for all you know,” cried the lieutenant. “The wind may drop at any moment. You, Tom May, take a pull at that sheet; Mr Murray, tighten that port line. That’s better; we must cut that lugger off. Did you see where she came out?”
“Not quite, sir,” said Murray, as he altered the boat’s course a trifle, “but it must have been close hereabouts. What are you going to do, sir?”
“Do, my lad? Why, take her and make the master or whatever he is, act as guide.”
“I see, sir. Then you think he must have come out of the river where the schooner has taken refuge?”
“That’s what I think,” said the lieutenant grimly; “and if I am right I fancy the captain will not be quite so hard upon us as he has been of late.”
“It will be a glorious triumph for us – I mean for you, sir,” said Murray hurriedly.
“Quite right, Mr Murray,” said his companion, smiling. “I can well afford to share the honours with you, for I shall have owed it to your sharp eyes. But there, don’t let’s talk. We must act and strain every nerve, for I’m doubtful about that lugger; she sails well and may escape us after all.”
Murray set his teeth as he steered so as to get every foot of speed possible out of the cutter, while, sheet in hand, Tom May sat eagerly watching the steersman, ready to obey the slightest sign as the boat’s crew sat fast with the oars in the rowlocks ready to dip together and pull for all they were worth, should the wind fail.
“That’s good, my lads,” said the lieutenant – “most seamanlike. It’s a pleasure to command such a crew.”
There was a low hissing sound as of men drawing their breath hard, and the old officer went on.
“We’re not losing ground, Mr Murray,” he said.
“No, sir; gaining upon her, I think.”
“So do I – think, Mr Murray,” said the lieutenant shortly, “but I’m not sure. Ah, she’s changing her course,” he added excitedly, “and we shall lose her. Oh, these luggers, these luggers! How they can skim over the waves! Here, marines,” he said sharply, as he turned to a couple of the rifle-armed men who sat in the stern sheets, “be ready to send a shot through the lugger’s foresail if I give the order; the skipper may understand what I mean.” And the speaker, sat frowning heavily at the lightly-built lugger they were following. “I don’t see what more I can do, Mr Murray.”
“No, sir,” said the midshipman hoarsely. “Oh, give the order, sir – pray do! We mustn’t lose that boat.”
“Fire!” said the lieutenant sharply; and one marine’s rifle cracked, while as the smoke rose lightly in the air Murray uttered a low cry of exultation.
“Right through the foresail, sir, and the skipper knows what we mean.”
“Yes, capital! Good shot, marine.”
The man’s face shone with pleasure as he thrust in a fresh cartridge before ramming it down, and the crew looked as if they were panting to give out a loud cheer at the success of the lieutenant’s manoeuvre, for the little lugger, which was just beginning to creep away from them after a change in her course, now obeyed a touch of her helm and bore round into the wind till the big lug sails shivered and she gradually settled down to rock softly upon the long heaving swell that swept in landward.
As the cutter neared, Murray noted that the strange boat was manned by a little crew of keen-looking blacks, not the heavy, protuberant-lipped, flat-nosed, West Coast “niggers,” but men of the fierce-looking tribes who seem to have come from the east in the course of ages and have preserved somewhat of the Arabic type and its keen, sharp intelligence of expression.
But the midshipman had not much time for observation of the little crew, his attention being taken up directly by the dramatic-looking entrance upon the scene of one who was apparently the skipper or owner of the lugger, and who had evidently been having a nap in the shade cast by the aft lugsail, and been awakened by the shot to give the order which had thrown the lugger up into the wind.
He surprised both the lieutenant and Murray as he popped into sight to seize the side of his swift little vessel and lean over towards the approaching cutter, as, snatching off his wide white Panama hat, he passed one duck-covered white arm across his yellowish-looking hairless face and shouted fiercely and in a peculiar twang —
“Here, I say, you, whoever you are, do you know you have sent a bullet through my fores’l?”
“Yes, sir. Heave to,” said the lieutenant angrily.
“Wal, I have hev to, hevn’t I, sirr? But just you look here; I don’t know what you thought you was shooting at, but I suppose you are a Britisher, and I’m sure your laws don’t give you leave to shoot peaceful traders to fill your bags.”
“That will do,” said the lieutenant sternly. “What boat’s that?”
“I guess it’s mine, for I had it built to my order, and paid for it. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what your boat is and what you was shooting at?”
“This is the first cutter of Her Majesty’s sloop of war Seafowl,” said the lieutenant sternly, “and – ”
But the American cut what was about to be said in two by crying in his sharp nasal twang —
“Then just you look here, stranger; yew’ve got hold of a boat as is just about as wrong as it can be for these waters. I’ve studied it and ciphered it out, and I tell yew that if yew don’t look out yew’ll be took by one of the waves we have off this here coast, and down yew’ll go. I don’t want to offend yew, mister, for I can see that yew’re an officer, but I tell yew that yew ought to be ashamed of yewrself to bring your men along here in such a hen cock-shell as that boat of yourn.”
“Why, it’s as seaworthy as yours, sir,” said the lieutenant good-humouredly.
“Not it, mister; and besides, I never go far from home in mine.”
“From home!” said the lieutenant keenly. “Where do you call home?”
“Yonder,” said the American, with a jerk of his head. “You ain’t got no home here, and it’s a mercy that you haven’t been swamped before now. Where have you come from? – the Cape?”
“No,” said the lieutenant; “but look here, sir, what are you, and what are you doing out here?”
“Sailing now,” said the American.
“But when you are ashore?”
“Rubber,” said the man.
“What, trading in indiarubber?”
“Shall be bimeby. Growing it now – plantation.”
“Oh,” said the lieutenant, looking at the speaker dubiously. “Where is your plantation?”
“Up the creek yonder,” replied the American, with another nod of his head towards the coast.
“Oh,” said the lieutenant quietly; “you have a plantation, have