Wilder made an impatient gesture to the other to obey, and walked up the bank, while he had time to comply.  Fid never disputed a positive and distinct order, though he often took so much discretionary latitude in executing those which were less precise.  He did not hesitate, therefore, to return the boat; but he did not carry his subordination so far as to do it without complaint.  When this act of justice was performed, Wilder entered the skiff; and, seeing that his companions were seated at their oars, he bade them to pull down the harbour, admonishing them, at the same time, to make as little noise as possible.

“The night I rowed you into Louisbourg, a-reconnoitring,” said Fid, thrusting his left hand into his bosom, while, with his right, he applied sufficient force to the light oar to make the skiff glide swiftly over the water—­“that night we muffled every thing even to our tongues.  When there is occasion to put stoppers on the mouths of a boat’s crew, why, I’m not the man to gainsay it; but, as I am one of them that thinks tongues were just as much made to talk with, as the sea was made to live on, I uphold rational conversation in sober society.  S’ip, you Guinea where are you shoving the skiff to? hereaway lies the island, and you are for going into yonder bit of a church.”

“Lay on your oars,” interrupted Wilder; “let the boat drift by this vessel.”

They were now in the act of passing the ship, which had been warping from the wharfs to an anchorage and in which the young sailor had so clandestinely heard that Mrs Wyllys and the fascinating Gertrude were to embark, on the following morning, for the distant province of Carolina.  As the skiff floated past, Wilder examined the vessel, by the dim light of the stars, with a seaman’s eye.  No part of her hull, her spars, or her rigging, escaped his notice, and, when the whole became confounded, by the distance, in one dark mass of shapeless matter, he leaned his head over the side of his little bark, and mused long and deeply with himself.  To this abstraction Fid presumed to offer no interruption.  It had the appearance of professional duty; a subject that, in his eyes, was endowed with a species of character that might be called sacred.  Scipio was habitually silent.  After losing many minutes in the manner, Wilder suddenly regained his recollection and abruptly observed,—­

“It is a tall ship, and one that should make a long chase!”

“That’s as may be,” returned the ready Fid.  “Should that fellow get a free wind, and his canvas all abroad, it might worry a King’s cruiser to get nigh enough to throw the iron on his decks; but jamm’d up close hauled, why, I’d engage to lay on his weather quarter, with the saucy He—­”

“Boys,” interrupted Wilder, “it is now proper that you dhould know something of my future movements.  We have been shipmates, I might almost say messmates, for more than twenty years.  I was better than an infant, Fid, when you brought me to the commander of your ship, and not only was instrumental in saving my life, but in putting me into a situation to make an officer.”