Chapter 8 No.8

Even while they were speaking a flag went rapidly up in a roll to the corvette's peak, when, shaking itself clear, it lay white and red, with a galaxy of white stars in a blue union, on the lee side of the spanker; while at the same instant a long, thin, coach-whip of a pennant unspun itself from the main truck, and hung motionless in the calm down the mast. Her decks were full of men, standing in groups under the shade of the sails to leeward; and on the poop were three or four officers in uniform and straw hats.

One of these last stood for some time gazing at the brig––one hand resting on the ratlines of the mizzen shrouds, and the other slowly swinging a trumpet backward and forward. Presently an officer with a pair of gleaming epaulets on his shoulders mounted the poop ladder, touched his hat, and waved his hand toward the brig. A moment after––

"Brig ahoy!" came in a sharp, clear, manly tone through the trumpet.

"Sir?"

"What brig is that?"

"The 'Martha Blunt!' named after my dear old wife, God bless her! and myself, Jacob Blunt, God bless me!" added the jolly skipper, in a sotto voce chuckle to the fair passenger who stood beside him.

"Where are you from, and where bound?" came again through the trumpet.

"Bordeaux, and bound to Kingston. We have a free passport from Sir Robert Calder and Admiral Villeneuve."

There was a wave of the trumpet as the speaker finished hailing, and then touching his hat to the officer with the gold swabs, and pausing only a moment, he moved to the other side of the corvette's poop.

"It would be no more nor polite in him to tell us what his name is, arter all the questions he's axed."

"Don't ye know, Mr. Binks," broke in the captain, "that the dignity of a man-of-war is sich that it wouldn't be discreet to tell no more than that she has a cargo of cannon balls, and going on a cruise any wheres? which ye may believe is as much valuable information as we might get out of our own calabashes without asking a question."

"You are allers right, Captain Blunt, but I did not tax my mind to think when I spoke them remarks," said Binks, deferentially.

The cruiser, however, seemed more communicative than the mate gave her credit for, and a moment after the officer with the trumpet sang out,

"This is the United States ship 'Scourge,' from Port Royal, bound on a cruise! Please report us."

And again, after a few words apparently with the officer with the epaulets, the trumpet was raised to his lips, and he asked, "Have you seen any vessels lately?"