Night, and no sign of the brig. Morning, and the doctor and his nephew
both on deck, with a sail in sight upon the distant horizon, while just
beyond it, looming up, was what seemed to be a dark cloud.
"There she is!" cried the doctor, glass in hand. "We will soon know the
truth now, Rodd."
"That, sir?" said a voice close behind them. "That's Saint Helena."
The doctor started round as though he had been stung, to stare fiercely
in the frank face of Joe Cross, who looked rather thin and
hollow-cheeked, but had declared himself well enough to take the morning
watch.
"It is, sir," said the man, who took the doctor's angry stare for a look
of doubt. "That's right enough, though it don't look like an island.
It's the big rock where they've got Bony shut up."
"Bah!" snapped the doctor, and he turned on his heel and walked away.
"Turned out of his bunk wrong side up'ards, sir?" asked the man, with a
smile.
"Pah!" ejaculated Rodd, and he stamped off in the other direction.
"Old 'un's been giving it to him, I suppose," said Joe to himself. "Oh,
I know; he'd been upsetting that bottle of fish soup as the skipper
fetched me down to swab up last night--that as went all over the
skipper's chart. Pore young chap! I'll go and smooth him down."
"What do you want?" cried Rodd angrily.
"Oh, nothing, sir. I only wanted to say I'm sorry I put your uncle out
about the island. I'm a bit deaf in one ear since I got hurt over that
fight, and I mis-underconstumbled him. He said, `There she is,' and I
thought he was talking about Bony's island, and he meant the brig."
"Well, suppose he did? There she is."
"Nay, sir; you take another look. That's a three-master, sir. Don't
you see?"
"Oh yes, I see now, Joe," said Rodd, who was rather ashamed of his
petulance to the man. "She was end on to us, and I didn't see the
mizzen. Why, she's in full sail!"
"Yes, sir, a regular crowd of canvas, topgallants and stunsles all up,
and if I haven't forgotten all about a man-of-war, that's what she is,
as we used to say, by the cut of her jib, which is a very sensible
remark, sir, as from here her jib's quite out of sight."
The doctor kept on deck till breakfast-time, sweeping the horizon with
his glass, while the skipper walked up and down with his long
mahogany-covered glass tucked under his left arm, and his hands very
deep down in his pockets, while his shoulders were hitched up to his
ears.
Then breakfast, with everything hot except the conduct of the occupants
of the cabin. This was almost icy, and hardly a word was spoken.
Up on deck again, with the schooner careening over to the pleasant
breeze, but no sign of the brig; but the three-masted vessel was
overhauling them fast, and before long a gun said, Heave to, in the very
emphatic monosyllable so well understood in the Royal Navy.
The skipper gave a glance at Uncle Paul with one eye, and that morning
it seemed if as he had been suddenly afflicted with a cast, for the
other eye turned outward and looked at Rodd.
Then he gave the order to the man at the wheel, who with a few turns of
the spokes ran the swift little vessel well up into the wind, her sails
began to flap, and she quietly settled down into a gentle rock upon the
beautifully rippled heaving sea. Then time went on, with the man-of-war
bearing down upon them rapidly, while the doctor stood scowling angrily
at the rock which had so much to do with the fate of nations standing
out more clearly in the sunlit air.
In due time a boat full of men was swung down from the davits of the
cruiser, the oars dipped, and she came skimming along with a steady
pull, and every stroke pulled clean and with hardly a splash, till she
came alongside, when, to the delight of Rodd, there in the stern-sheets
were the same officer and middy who had overhauled them off the African
coast.
Rodd was all eagerness, and advanced ready to grasp hands with the
reefer, but to his great surprise everything was coldly stern and
formal. Two marines followed the officers on board, and the skipper,
doctor, and Rodd were ordered down into the boat as prisoners, while a
prize crew under the command of the middy, who looked more important
than he did upon his first visit to the schooner, and stared at Rodd as
if he had never seen him before, was left on board.
Uncle Paul spoke to the lieutenant, but his words were received almost
in silence, while no explanation being forthcoming, he sat still and
frowned.
The sloop of war, their old friend, was soon reached, and the prisoners
were marched up to the quarter-deck where the captain stood waiting for
them, scanning them sternly before beginning to question the skipper as
to the name of the schooner and their object in those waters.
Questions were answered and explanations given in Captain Chubb's most
blunt and straightforward way, before the captain turned his searching
eyes upon Uncle Paul.
"Then you are Dr Robson, sir?" he said.
"Yes. May I ask--"
"You are here carrying out a scientific research?"
"Yes."
"In company with your consort, Count Des Saix, of the French brig
_Dagobert_?"
"That's quite right, sir; but may I ask--"
"Why you are my prisoners? Certainly. But I will shorten matters by
telling you that your scientific research was a plot to carry off the
prisoner of the British Government, the ex-emperor Napoleon Bonaparte."
"No, sir, I'll be hanged if it was!" cried the doctor.
"Which plot has completely failed," added the captain. "As I have said,
sir, you are my prisoner."
"And what about Captain Chubb, here, and my nephew?"
"They are prisoners too, of course."
"But my schooner--my pleasure yacht?" said the doctor.