ed, no visible indication of such discovery or
suspicion would be permitted to reveal itself to our eyes; and the same
studied concealment would equally apply to the preparations for any
investigation that they might be moved to undertake. Still, I thought
it just barely possible that by maintaining a strict watch I might
chance to detect some sign of alertness on board the brig, if she were
indeed the _Barracouta_, as I strongly suspected. Nor was I
disappointed, for I did at length detect such an indication, not on
board the brig herself, but at some considerable distance from her, and
immediately under the slender crescent of the setting moon, where, while
sweeping the surface of the water, moved by some vague instinct, I
caught two faint momentary flashes of dim orange radiance that to me had
very much the appearance of reflected moonlight glancing off the wet
blades of oars. And if this were so it meant that we had been seen, our
character very shrewdly suspected--most probably from the steady plying
of the sweeps for no more apparently urgent reason than that we were
becalmed--and that a surprise attack was about to be attempted from the
very quarter where, under the circumstances, it was least likely to be
looked for, namely, straight ahead. Of course what I had seen might
merely have been a ray of moonlight glancing off the wet body of a
porpoise, a whale, or some other sea creature risen to the surface to
breathe; but it had so much the appearance of the momentary flash of
oars that I was loath to believe it anything else. Assuming it to be
what I hoped, my cue was now of course to distract attention as much as
possible from that part of the ocean that lay immediately ahead of us;
and this could not be better done than by concentrating it upon the
brig, which now lay practically abeam of us, a short three miles away.
I therefore--no longer surreptitiously but ostentatiously--again brought
the night-glass to bear upon her, and allowed myself to be found thus
when Mendouca came aft, after having personally superintended the
muffling of the sweeps and the putting of them in motion again.

"Well," he said, as he rejoined me, "have you not yet been able to
satisfy yourself as to the character of that brig?"

"No," said I; "but, whatever she is, they all seem to be asleep on board
her. If she is a slaver, her skipper has more care and consideration
for his property than you have, for he at least allows his slav