drawn from
the fellow."

"Hold!" said a calm but authoritative voice from the most distant part of
the ship; "it is as it should be, let them approach."

The man in the bows of the vessel bade them come along side, and then the
conversation ceased. Wilder had now an opportunity to discover, that, as
the hail had been intended for another boat, which was still at a
distance, he had answered prematurely. But, perceiving that it was too
late to retreat with safety, or perhaps only acting in conformity to his
original determination, he directed his companions to obey.

"'Cutting the waves with the taffrail,' is not the civillest answer a man
can give to a hail," muttered Fid, as he dropped the blade of his oar into
the water; "nor is it a matter to be logged in a man's memory, that they
have taken offence at the same. Howsomever, master Harry, if they are so
minded as to make a quarrel about the thing, give them as good as they
send, and count on manly backers."

No reply was made to this encouraging assurance for, by this time, the
skiff was within a few feet of the ship. Wilder ascended the side of the
vessel amid a deep, and, as he felt it to be, an ominous silence. The
night was dark, though enough light fell from the stars, that were here
and there visible, to render objects sufficiently distinct to the
practised eyes of a seaman. When our young adventurer touched the deck, he
cast a hurried and scrutinizing look about him, as if doubts and
impressions, which had long been harboured, were all to be resolved by
that first view.

An ignorant landsman would have been struck with the order and symmetry
with which the tall spars rose towards the heavens, from the black mass of
the hull, and with the rigging that hung in the air, one dark line
crossing another, until all design seemed confounded in the confusion and
intricacy of the studied maze. But to Wilder these familiar objects
furnished no immediate attraction. His first rapid glance had, like that
of all seamen, it is true, been thrown upward, but it was instantly
succeeded by the brief, though keen, examination to which we have just
alluded. With the exception of one who, though his form was muffled in a
large sea-cloak, seemed to be an officer, not a living creature was to be
seen on the decks. On either side there was a dark, frowning battery,
arranged in the beautiful and imposing order of marine architecture; but
nowhere could he find a trace of the crowd o