“It stands well;” returned his half-attentive commander.  “Give it the other drag, if you think best.”

“Just as you please, Sir; ’tis all one to me.  I care not if the mast is hove all of one side, like the hat on the head of a country buck; but when a thing is as it ought to be, reason would tell us to let it alone.  Mr. Luff was of opinion, that by altering the slings of the main-yard, we should give a better set to the top-sail sheets; but it was little that could be done with the stick aloft, and I am ready to pay Her Majesty the difference between the wear of the sheets as they stand now, and as Mr. Luff would have them, out of my own pocket, though it is often as empty as a parish church in which a fox-hunting parson preaches.  I was present, once, when a real tally-ho was reading the service, and one of your godless squires got in the wake of a fox, with his hounds, within hail of the church-windows!  The cries had some such effect on my roarer, as a puff of wind would have on this ship; that is to say, he sprung his luff, and though he kept on muttering something I never knew what, his eyes were in the fields the whole time the pack was in view.  But this wasn’t the worst of it; for when he got fairly back to his work again, the wind had been blowing the leaves of his book about, and he plumped us into the middle of the marriage ceremony.  I am no great lawyer, but there were those who said it was a god-send that half the young men in the parish weren’t married to their own grandmothers!”

“I hope the match was agreeable to the family,” said Ludlow, relieving one elbow by resting the weight of his head on the other.

“Why, as to that, I will not take upon me to say since the clerk corrected the parson’s reckoning before the mischief was entirely done.  There has been a little dispute between me and the first-lieutenant, Captain Ludlow, concerning the trim of the ship.  He maintains that we have got too much in forward of what he calls the centre of gravity; and he is of opinion that had we been less by the head, the smuggler would never have had the heels of us, in the chase; whereas I invite any man to lay a craft on her water-line——­”

“Show our light!” interrupted Ludlow.  “Yonder goes the signal of the launch!”

Trysail ceased speaking, and, stepping on a gun, he also began to gaze in the direction of the Cove.  A lantern, or some other bright object, was leisurely raised three times, and as often hid from view.  The signal came from under the land, and in a quarter that left no doubt of its object.

“So far, well;” cried the Captain, quitting his stand, and turning, for the first time, with consciousness, to his officer. “’Tis a sign that they are at the inlet, and that the offing is clear.  I think, Master Trysail, we are now sure of our prize.  Sweep the horizon thoroughly with the night-glass, and then we will close upon this boasted brigantine.”