The Pirate of the Mediterranean. W.h.g. Kingston

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СКАЧАТЬ looked round the horizon, as if to satisfy himself that her description was correct. He had taken a survey of the whole expanse of the sea to the westward, and his eye had gradually swept round to the east, when, instead of turning round to answer, he kept it fixed on a distant spot just seen over the weather or larboard bow. Shifting his position a little, he placed his telescope to his eye, and took a steady gaze.

      “That’s her, I can’t help thinking,” he muttered. “But what she wants out there, I can’t say.”

      To the surprise of Ada, he walked forward, and called his mate to his side.

      “Here, Mr Timmins, just tell me what you think of that chap out there, over the weather cat-head,” he said, giving his officer the glass.

      The mate took the instrument, and looked as he was directed.

      “She’s a lateen-rigged craft standing on a wind athwart our course, sir,” answered the mate instantly, as if there was no difficulty in ascertaining thus much.

      “That one may see with half an eye, Mr Timmins; but do you see nothing unusual about her?”

      “I can’t say that I see any difference between her and the craft, which one is always meeting with in these seas,” answered the mate. “Her canvas stands well, and looks very white as we see her beam almost on to us. She seems one of those vessels with a name I never could manage to speak, which trade along the coast of Sicily and Italy, and come over to Malta.”

      “By the way she is standing, she will pass at no great distance to leeward of us, and if she was to haul up a little, she would just about reach us,” observed the master in a tone of interrogation.

      “Just about it, sir,” replied the mate.

      “Well, then, Mr Timmins, keep your eye on her, and when we get near her, if there is still light enough left to make her out, tell me if you have ever seen her before.”

      The mate, somewhat surprised at the directions his chief had given him, prepared, however, to obey them, and while he superintended the people on deck, he constantly kept his telescope fixed on the stranger. A quarter of an hour or twenty minutes might have passed, when, after taking a longer scrutiny than before, he suddenly turned round, and walked to where his commander was standing.

      “I know her, sir,” he exclaimed. “She is no other than the craft which nearly ran foul of us yesterday, and which went out of harbour this morning. She had two outlandish-looking chaps as passengers; and one of them came on board in the evening to talk about taking a passage to Greece. I remember him well, sir, though I did not say anything to you.”

      “You are right, Mr Timmins, it’s her, there’s no doubt,” said Bowse. “We’ll give her a wide berth, for there seems to be something suspicious about her,” and he mentioned what Captain Fleetwood had said to him. “I don’t think the chap would dare to attack us; but, with females on board, it’s as well to be cautious. We’ll haul up a little by degrees, not to make it remarkable, so as to pass to windward of him, and have the guns loaded and run out, just as a matter of course, in the Mediterranean, tell the people. I don’t want to have any talking about it, you know; for it will all be moonshine, I suspect. Look you, too, have the small arms and cutlasses up on deck, just to overhaul them, as it were. The studden-sails must come in, at all events; it won’t do to be carrying on at night as if we had fifty hands in a watch instead of five. Now let the people knock off work.”

      “Ay, ay, sir,” answered the mate, and, without the slightest appearance of hurry, he set to work to obey his commander’s orders.

      The crew, who had been employed beyond the usual hour in getting the ship to right, finished stowing away everything that was loose, and got the hatches on over the cargo. One after another the studden-sails, which had been extended beyond the yard-arms came flying down like huge white birds from their lofty perches, the moment the halyards and sheets were let go, and, as they bulged out, they looked as if they were about to sail off before the wind ahead of the vessel. As all hands were wanted for the work, Bowse clapped on himself, petting a rope into even Mitchell’s hands, and in a short time the Zodiac, stripped of her wings, was brought under more easy-working canvas. The lee-braces were then flattened in a little, and the helm being put a few strokes to starboard, she headed up towards the north. While the mate was following the other directions he had given, Bowse again brought his glass to bear on the speronara, and, while so doing, his eye was attracted to a sail which appeared in the horizon, and which he at once knew to be a square-rigged vessel. From its height, too, above the water, and its faint outline, he judged her to be a ship or a brig of some size. He had, indeed, remarked her some time before, and it now occurred to him that she had not altered her position since first seen. It would therefore appear that she was standing the same course as the Zodiac; but as they neared her rapidly, such could scarcely be the case, and he, now seeing that her head was turned towards them, could only come to the conclusion that she was hove to. He calculated, also, that the speronara, supposing that she had, for some time, steered the same course she was now on, must have passed close to her.

      The idea came into the master’s head more as a matter of speculation than because any further suspicions occurred to him, for the probability of those he still entertained being correct, he thought so very slight, that he was almost vexed with himself for acting on them; and had it not been for his promise to Captain Fleetwood, he most likely would have done so. That the speronara, now to leeward of him, was the self-same craft he had seen in Malta harbour, he could, however, no longer entertain a doubt. He had noted her long, low hull, with overhanging stern and high bow, the great length of her tapering yards, and the way her immense lateen sails stood; there was also a peculiar dark mark on the cloth next to the outer leech of her foresail, near the head of the yard, which was unmistakable, and when he could clearly see that her identity would be proved. As he now brought his glass again to bear on the speronara, he saw that as the Zodiac was brought on a wind, she was immediately hauled close on it, so that, notwithstanding the change he had made in his course, she might still pass, if she liked, even to windward of him, unless she also chose to hug the wind as he had done. On seeing this, the spirit of the British sailor was roused within him.

      “Oh, hang it,” he muttered. “I’m not going to be altering my course for fear of a rascally Italian piccaroon, if such that fellow should be. If he chooses to come near us, he must take the consequences. We’ll show him that we’ve got some bulldogs on board who can bark pretty well if they like. But I forgot the young lady, and the little Smaitch girl with her. It won’t do to let them run any risk of being hurt, should the villains begin by firing into us before they speak, as is the fashion of the cowards. I must manage to get them down below without frightening them.”

      Having arrived at the conclusion of these cogitations, Bowse approached to where the colonel and his niece were sitting; the young lady employed in gazing on the sea, while he was looking with somewhat an inquiring eye at the preparations carrying on under the mate’s superintendence on deck.

      “Don’t you think the young lady had better go below, out of the way of the damp, sir,” began Bowse, puzzled what excuse to make.

      “Damp! surely there’s none to hurt me,” said Ada, looking up somewhat surprised. “It is so refreshing.”

      “No, miss, the cold – the night air may do you harm,” rejoined Bowse.

      “I have no fear of either,” answered Ada. “It’s quite warm, and I do not even require a cloak.”

      The master was sadly perplexed, and the colonel would not come to his aid; at last he bethought him of a better reason, which must succeed.

      “Yes, miss; but you see it’s coming on night, and it’s a rule that all ladies should go below at night,” he said, СКАЧАТЬ