"
"Why don't we fire at her, Mr. Rawlinson?"
The officer laughed.
"How are you going to work your guns, with the ship rolling like this?
No, lad, we are like two muzzled dogs at present--we can do nothing
but watch each other. I am sorry to say that I don't think the fellow
is alone. Two or three times I have fancied that I caught a glimpse of
a sail on our starboard quarter. I could not swear to it, but I don't
think I was mistaken, and I called the captain's attention that way,
just before he went down ten minutes ago, and he thought he saw it,
too. However, as there was nothing to be done, he went down for a
caulk. He had not left the deck since noon, yesterday."
"But if she is no bigger than the other, I suppose we shall leave her
behind, too, Mr. Rawlinson?"
"Ay, lad, we shall leave them both behind presently; but if they are
what I think, we are likely to hear more of them, later on. They would
not be so far offshore as this, unless they were on the lookout for
Indiamen, which of course keep much farther out than ships bound up
the Mediterranean; and, having once spotted us, they will follow us
like hounds on a deer's trail. However, I think they are likely to
find that they have caught a tartar, when they come up to us.
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