"Aye, Cap'n--and then?"
"Then you shall try what you can do wi' one o' those long guns o' yours."
"Lord love ye, Cap'n, that's the spirit!" cried Godby, hitching joyously at his broad belt, "All I asks is a fair light and no favour!"
"And you have the middle watch, Godby man, so I'll get a wink o' sleep," says Adam, "but do you call me so soon as we raise her hull. As for you, Martin, you'll have slept your fill, I judge."
"And yet I'm plaguy drowsy still!" says I.
"There's a spare berth in the coach, comrade, an you're so minded!"
"Nay, Adam, I'll watch awhile with Godby."
"Good! You've keen eyes, Martin--use 'em!" says he, and goes down the ladder forthwith.
And now, pacing the lofty poop beside Godby, I was aware that the "Faithful Friend" was dark fore and aft, not a light twinkled anywhere.
"How comes this, Godby!" says I, pointing to the dim shapes of the great stern lanthorns above us.
"Cap'n's orders, Mart'n! We've been dark these two nights, and yet if yon craft is what we think, 'twould seem she follows us by smell, pal, smell. As how, say you? Says I, last night she was fair to be seen having closed us during the day, so out go our lights and up goes our helm and we stand away from her. At dawn she was nowhere and yet--here she is again--if yon ship be the same."
"Which we shall learn in an hour or so, Godby."
"Aye, Mart'n, if she don't smell us a-coming and bear away from us. And yet she must be a clean, fast vessel, but we'll overhaul her going roomer or on a bowline."
"Roomer? Speak plain, Godby, I'm no mariner!"
"Time'll teach ye, pal! Look'ee now, 'roomer' means 'large,' and 'large' means 'free,' and 'free' means wi' a quartering-wind, and that means going away from the wind or the wind astarn of us; whiles 'on a bowline' means close-hauled agin the wind, d'ye see?"
"Godby, 'tis hard to believe you that same peddler I fell in with at the 'Hop-pole.'"
"Why, Mart'n, I'm a cove as adapts himself according. Give me a pack and I'm all peddler and j'y in it, gi'e me a ship and I'm all mariner to handle her sweet and kind and lay ye a course wi' any--though guns is my meat, Mart'n. Fifteen year I followed the sea and a man is apt to learn a little in such time. So here stand I this day not only gunner but master's mate beside of as tight a ship, maugre the crew, as ever sailed--and all along o' that same chance meeting at the 'Hop-pole.'"