“Gentlemen,” said Wilder, with a peculiar and perhaps an ironical emphasis on the word, “what would ye have?  There is not a breath of air stirring and the ship is naked to her topsails!”

It would have been difficult for either of the two malcontents to give a very satisfactory answer to this question.  Both were secretly goaded by mysterious and superstitious apprehensions, that were powerfully aided by the more real and intelligible aspect of the night; but neither had so far forgotten his manhood, and his professional pride, as to lay bare the full extent of his own weakness, at a moment when he was liable to be called upon for the exhibition of qualities of a more positive and determined character.  The feeling that was uppermost betrayed itself in the reply of Earing, though in an indirect and covert manner.

“Yes, the vessel is snug enough now,” he said, “though eyesight has shown us it is no easy matter to drive a freighted ship through the water as fast as one of those flying craft aboard which no man can say who stands at the helm, by what compass she steers, or what is her draught!”

“Ay,” resumed Knighthead, “I call the Caroline fast for an honest trader.  There are few square-rigged boats who do not wear the pennants of the king, that can eat her out of the wind on a bowline, or bring her into their wake with studding-sails set.  But this is a time and an hour to make a seaman think.  Look at yon hazy light, here in with the land, that is coming so fast down upon us, and then tell me whether it comes from the coast of America, or whether it comes from out of the stranger who has been so long running under our lee, but who has got, or is fast getting, the wind of us at last, while none here can say how, or why.  I have just this much, and no more, to say:  give me for consort a craft whose captain I know, or give me none!”

“Such is your taste, Mr. Knighthead,” said Wilder, coldly; “mine may, by some accident, be different.”

“Yes, yes,” observed the more cautious and prudent Earing, “in time of war, and with letters of marque aboard, a man may honestly hope the sail he sees should have a stranger for her master; or otherwise he would never fall in with an enemy.  But, though an Englishman born myself, I should rather give the ship in that mist a clear sea, seeing that I neither know her nation nor her cruise.  Ah, Captain Wilder, this is an awful sight for the morning watch!  Often and often have I seen the sun rise in the east, and no harm done; but little good can come of a day when the light first breaks in the west.  Cheerfully would I give the owners the last month’s pay, hard as it has been earned, did I but know under what flag the stranger sails.”

“Frenchman, Don, or Devil, yonder he comes!” cries Wilder.  Then, turning towards the attentive crew, he shouted, in a voice that was appalling by its vehemence and warning, “Let run the after-halyards! round with the fore-yard; round with it, men, with a will!”