It is scarcely necessary to say how keen the attention of the slave became, when his master and his companions were seen to return to the land.  They immediately ascended to the foot of the oak, and then there was a long and apparently a serious conference between them.  During this consultation, the negro dropped the end of his hoe, and never suffered his gaze, for an instant, to alter its direction.  Indeed he scarcely drew breath, until the whole party quitted the spot together, and buried themselves in the thicket that covered the cape, taking the direction of its outer or northern extremity, instead of retiring by the shore of the Cove, towards the inlet.  Then Bonnie respired heavily, and began to look about him at the other objects that properly belonged to the interest of the scene.

The brigantine had run up her boat, and she now lay, as when first seen, a motionless, beautiful, and exquisitely graceful fabric, without the smallest sign about her of an intention to move, or indeed without exhibiting any other proof, except in her admirable order and symmetry, that any of human powers dwelt within her hull.  The royal cruiser, though larger and of far less aerial mould and fashion, presented the same picture of repose.  The distance between the two was about a league; and Bonnie was sufficiently familiar with the formation of the land and of the position of the vessels, to be quite aware that this inactivity on the part of those whose duty it was to protect the rights of the Queen, proceeded from their utter ignorance of the proximity of their neighbor.  The thicket which bounded the Cove and the growth of oaks and pines that stretched along the narrow sandy spit of land quite to its extremity, sufficiently accounted for the fact.  The negro, therefore, after gazing for several minutes at the two immovable vessels, turned his eye askance on the earth, shook his head, and then burst into a laugh, which was so noisy that it caused his sable partner to thrust her vacant and circular countenance through an open window of the scullery of the villa, to demand the reason of a merriment that to her faithful feelings appeared to be a little unsocial.

“Hey! you alway’ keep ’e queer t’ing to heself, Bonnie, but!” cried the vixen.  “I’m werry glad to see old bones like a hoe; an’ I wonner dere ar’ time to laugh, wid ’e garden full of weed!”

“Grach!” exclaimed the negro, stretching out an arm in a forensic attitude; “what a black woman know of politic!  If a hab time to talk, better cook a dinner.  Tell one t’ing, Phyllis, and that be dis; vy ’e ship of Captain Ludlow no lif’ ‘e anchor, an’ come take dis rogue in ’e Cove? can a tell dat much, or no?—­If no, let a man, who understan’ heself, laugh much as he like.  A little fun no harm Queen Anne, nor kill ’e Gubbenor!”

“All work and no sleep make old bone ache, Bonnie, but!” returned the consort.  “Ten o’clock—­twelve o’clock—­t’ree o’clock, and no bed; vell I see ’e sun afore a black fool put ‘e head on a pillow!  An’ now a hoe go all ’e same as if he sleep a ten hour.  Masser Myn’ert got a heart, and he no wish to kill he people wid work, or old Phyllis war’ dead, fifty year, next winter.”