Part 29 (2/2)

”There's something moving away off on our weather bow,” sang out the man, shoving his head over the side of the top. ”I can't make it out exactly, sir; there's a haze on the water ahead.”

The second lieutenant, who was acting as officer of the watch, being an easy-going sort of chap and rather sleepy from being up pacing to and fro on the bridge since midnight, did not pay much attention to this intelligence.

”All right, lookout-man,” he hailed back, after a portentous yawn.

”It's probably the morning breeze blowing the fog off the land that you see. Tell me, a-a-ah! When you are able to make it out more clearly, a-a-ah!”

And, he almost yawned himself out of his boots as he gave utterance to the last word.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

BOARDING THE SLAVE DHOW.

”On deck, there!” shouted out the lookout-man again, almost before the sound of Lieutenant Dabchick's last yawn had died away in the distance, like a groan or its echo. ”There's a whole fleet o' dhows a-creeping up under the lee of the land and running before the wind to the north'ard, sir!”

This stopped Mr Dabchick's yawns and made him open his sleepy eyes pretty wide, I can tell you!

”A fleet of dhows, lookout-man!” he cried, fully awake at last, not only in his own person, but as regarded the responsibility attaching to him should he unhappily let our prey escape and so foil his captain's carefully arranged plan. ”Are you certain, Adams?”

”Not a doubt of it, sir,” replied the captain of the foretop, in an a.s.sured tone that expressed his confidence in his own statement.

”They're Arab dhows sure enough, sir. One--two--three; and, ay, there is two more on 'em jist rounding the p'int--that makes five on 'em, sir, all bearing to the north as fast as they can go, with slack sheets and the breeze dead astern, which they are bringing up with them. They're right off our weather beam, now, sir.”

”The devil!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lieutenant Dabchick, in his flurry using a stronger expression than he would probably have done had 'old Hankey Pankey' been on the quarter-deck, rus.h.i.+ng into the chart-house on the bridge and s.n.a.t.c.hing up a telescope, which he brought to bear on the horizon in the direction indicated by Adams in the foretop above, whose point of vantage, of course, gave him a wider range of view. ”On our weather beam, you say?”

”Ay, ay, sir,” roared back the lookout; ”they're right abreast of our forrud funnel now, sir.”

Mr Dabchick's hand shook so much from excitement that he could not hold the gla.s.s steady; so, propping it up athwart the stanchion at the weather end of the bridge, and sprawling out his legs to give him a good purchase, he worked the telescope about till he at last spotted the objects Adams had seen.

”By the Lord Harry!” exclaimed the lieutenant, ”you are right, Adams. I must send down and tell the captain at once.”

With that, he hailed the mids.h.i.+pman of the watch and despatched him with the news to Captain Hankey's cabin aft; while at the same time he rang the engine-room gong, and shouted down through the voice-tube to tell them below to 'stand by,' as probably we would want steam up in a very short time; directing also the c.o.xswains of the boats alongside to make ready, as well as pa.s.sing the word forward for the boatswain's mates and the drummer and bugler to be handy when wanted.

This done, all his orders having been issued and executed in less time than I take to tell of it, Mr Dabchick resumed his interrupted, if monotonous, task of walking up and down the bridge; stopping whenever he had to slew round, at the end of his promenade, to take another squint at the dhows, and warning Adams, though that worthy needed no such injunction, to 'keep his eye on them.'

Mr Dabchick had just sung out this for the second time on getting back to the weather end of the bridge, when Captain Hankey, accompanied by Mr Gresham and a lot of the other officers, rushed on deck, some of them half dressed and buckling on their gear as they came hurrying along.

'Old Hankey Pankey' made straight for the bridge, the first lieutenant close at his heels.

”Ha, Mr Dabchick,” cried the captain, as he skated up the iron ladder leading from the deck below to the chart-house, taking three steps at each bound, ”so you've sighted those beggars at last, eh?”

”Yes, sir,” said the second lieutenant, smiling, and rubbing his hands, having put down his telescope on top of the movable slab on the bridge the navigator had for spreading out his charts; Mr Dabchick a.s.suming an air of great complacency, as if it were entirely through his exertions the dhows had been seen or were there at all--”I think you'll find 'em there to win'ard all right, sir.”

'Old Hankey Pankey' caught up the telescope that Mr Dabchick had just deposited on the slab, putting it to his eye.

”Yes, they are dhows sure enough, Gresham,” he said to the first lieutenant, after a brief inspection of the craft, which were stealing past us under the loom of the land far away to the westward. ”No doubt, they are the very rascals who plundered the wreck we saw yesterday, and as likely as not murdered all the people on board! They are making for the same spot again, too, to pick up the rest of the loot they have not yet taken off; but we'll stop their little game. Bugler, sound the 'a.s.sembly'! Drummer, beat to 'quarters'!”

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