第56章

She was a Greek lying-to for water: she was a Malay coming north with canes, and short of hands: she was a pirate watching the Straits.

The captain leaned silent and sombre with his arms on the bulwarks, and watched the suspected craft.

Mr. Fullalove joined the group, and levelled a powerful glass, of his own construction. His inspection was long and minute, and, while the glass was at his eye, Sharpe asked him half in a whisper, could he make out anything?

"Wal," said he, "the varmint looks considerable snaky." Then, without removing his glass, he let drop a word at a time, as if the facts were trickling into his telescope at the lens, and out at the sight "One--two--four--seven, false ports."There was a momentary murmur among the officers all round. But British sailors are undemonstrative: Colonel Kenealy, strolling the deck with his cigar, saw they were watching another ship with maritime curiosity, and making comments but he discerned no particular emotion nor anxiety in what they said, nor in the grave low tones they said it in. Perhaps a brother seaman would though.

The next observation that trickled out of Fullalove's tube was this: "Ijudge there are too few hands on deck, and too many--white--eyeballs--glittering at the portholes.""Confound it," muttered Bayliss, uneasily; "how can you see that?"Fullalove replied only by quietly handing his glass to Dodd. The captain thus appealed to, glued his eye to the tube.

"Well, sir; see the false ports, and the white eyebrows?" asked Sharpe ironically.

"I see this is the best glass I ever looked through," said Dodd doggedly, without interrupting his inspection.

"I think he is a Malay pirate," said Mr. Grey.

Sharpe took him up very quickly, and indeed angrily: "Nonsense. And if he is, he won't venture on a craft of this size.""Says the whale to the swordfish," suggested Fullalove, with a little guttural laugh.

The captain, with the American glass at his eye, turned half round to the man at the wheel: "Starboard!""Starboard it is.""Steer south-south-east"

"Ay, ay, sir." And the ship's course was thus altered two points.

This order lowered Dodd fifty per cent. in Mr. Sharpe's estimation. He held his tongue as long as he could: but at last his surprise and dissatisfaction burst out of him, "Won't that bring him out on us!""Very likely, sir," replied Dodd.

"Begging your pardon, captain, would it not be wiser to keep our course, and show the blackguard we don't fear him?""When we _do!_ Sharpe, he has made up his mind an hour ago whether to lie still or bite; my changing my course two points won't change his mind, but it may make him declare it; and _I_ must know what he does intend before I run the ship into the narrows ahead.""Oh, I see," said Sharpe, half convinced.

The alteration in the _Agra's_ course produced no movement on the part of the mysterious schooner. She lay-to under the land still, and with only a few hands on deck, while the _Agra_ edged away from her and entered the Straits between Long Island and Point Leat, leaving the schooner about two miles and a half distant to the N.W.

Ah! The stranger's deck swarms black with men.

His sham ports fell as if by magic, his gums grinned through the gaps like black teeth; his huge foresail rose and filled, and out he came in chase.

The breeze was a kiss from Heaven, the sky a vaulted sapphire, the sea a million dimples of liquid, lucid gold.