style="font-size:15px;"> “I see,” said the lieutenant rather hoarsely from excitement. “Now then, my man, cast off.”
“One moment,” said the American, and Murray saw him through the paling moonlight raise his hand as if to wipe his brow. “You quite understand, then? The river gives a big bend round to left, then another to the right, and then one more to the left, jest like a wriggling wum. Tell your skipper to follow me close so as to run by me as soon as he sees the schooner lying at anchor. She’ll come into sight all at once from behind the trees like, and whatever you do, run close aboard and grapple her. Her skipper’ll have no time to show fight if you do your work to rights. I’m all of a tremble about it, I tell yew, for it means so much to me. There; my work’s jest about done, and I’m going to run for the shore out of the way. I don’t want the Portygee to get so much as a sniff of me.”
“Cast off,” said the lieutenant; and as the cutter dropped back free, the lugger seemed to spring forward into faint mist, which began to show upon the broad surface of the great river, while the sloop glided up alongside, one of the men caught the rope that was heaved to them, and directly after Murray missed their pilot and his swift craft, for it was eclipsed by the Seafowl as she glided between, right in the lugger’s wake.
Chapter Seven.
Trapped
“Well, Mr Anderson,” said the captain, as the latter briefly related the last sayings of the American, “that’s all plain enough, and in a few minutes we ought to be alongside.”
“Yes, sir, after following the windings of the river, or in other words following our guide, till we see the masts of the schooner above the trees.” And the lieutenant stood anxiously watching the lugger, which seemed to have rapidly increased its distance. “I presume, sir, that we are all ready for action?”
“Of course we are, Mr Anderson,” said the captain stiffly. “We shall keep on till we are pretty close, then run up into the wind, and you and Mr Munday will head the boarders. We shall take them so by surprise that there will be very little resistance. But I see no signs of the schooner’s spars yet.”
“No, sir, but we have to make another bend round yet.”
“Yes, of course,” said the captain, as he swept the river banks with his night glass.
“The river seems to fork here, though, sir,” said the lieutenant anxiously.
“Humph! Yes; but I suppose it’s all right, for the lugger keeps on. We must be on the correct course if we follow him.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Murray excitedly. “I caught sight of the masts of a vessel lying yonder.”
“Eh? Where, Mr Murray?” said the captain, in a low voice full of excitement.
“Yonder, sir, about half a mile to starboard, beyond the trees on the bank.”
“To be sure! Tall taper spars. I see, Mr Murray.”
“But the sloop is running straight away to port, sir,” said the lieutenant anxiously.
“Well, what of that, Mr Anderson? Did not the American tell you that we were to follow certain bends of the river?”
“Yes, sir, but – ”
“Yes, sir, but!” said the captain, in an angry whisper. “Is this a time for raising buts? According to your own showing, the schooner was to be found at anchor in one of the bends where the black chief’s town lay.”
“Yes, sir, but I see no sign of any thatched huts.”
“All in good time, Mr Anderson. We shall see the lugger swing round that next point directly, and then we shall be in full view of our prize.”
The captain turned from his chief officer impatiently, and then in a low tone issued a few orders with respect to future proceedings, the master following out the instructions, while the two boarding parties, each armed and ready, stood waiting for the command which should launch them on board the now invisible slaver.
“Bah!” ejaculated the captain. “We are half-an-hour too late. We ought to be alongside now. Hang the fellow, Mr Anderson! Can he be taking us the right way round that point?”
“I hope so, sir, but I have my suspicions,” replied the lieutenant anxiously.
“What, that he is playing us false?”
“No, sir, but that he has lost heart and is afraid to pilot us right to where the schooner lies.”
“The scoundrel! If he has – ” began the captain, sharing now in his subordinate’s anxiety. “Oh, impossible! He must know better than we do. Ahoy, there!” he cried, speaking just loud enough for the lookout to hear. “Can you make out where the lugger is making for?”
“Ay, ay, sir! Bit of a creek yonder, right inshore.”
“That’s it, sir,” cried the lieutenant excitedly; “he has taken fright. We must run round that bend yonder, keeping to mid-stream.”
“Or anchor,” exclaimed the captain sharply. “Why, confound it, man! The river forks here, and we are in a branch with a current running in another direction. Stand by there to lower the anchor!” he roared, “or we shall be ashore.”
The order came too late, for as in obedience to order after order, the sloop’s course was altered and her sails began to shiver, there was a preliminary shock as if bottom had been lightly touched, then a shiver which seemed to communicate itself upward from the deck through Murray’s spine, and the next minute the Seafowl heeled over slightly as she seemed to cut her way onward into the soft mud, where she stuck fast with the fierce current into which they had run pressing hardly against her side as it raced swiftly by.
“Trapped!” said a voice from close to Murray’s ear, and the young man turned swiftly from where he had been gazing over the side in the direction of the further shore, to encounter the first lieutenant’s angry eyes. “Well, Mr Murray,” he said bitterly, “where is that Yankee snake?”
“Just gliding in yonder among the trees, sir,” cried the young man passionately. “I suspected him from the first.”
“Well, Mr Anderson,” said the captain, hurrying up, and as coolly as if nothing whatever was wrong, “either you or I have placed the sloop in about as unpleasant a position as it was possible to get. Now then, how about getting out of it?”
“We’re on soft mud, sir,” said the gentleman addressed.
“And with a falling tide, I’m afraid. There, get to work man, and see what can be done with an anchor to haul her upon a level keel before the position is worse, for we shall board no slaver to-day.”
“Beg pardon, sir.”
“What is it, Mr Murray?”
The midshipman pointed right aft, where the faint mist was floating away from where it hung about a mile away over the distant shore.
“Well, sir, why don’t you speak?” cried the captain, now speaking angrily. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Murray; another mist was in my eyes. That must be the course of the other fork of the river. I see it plainly now. We have been lured up here and run upon this muddy shoal in the belief that we shall never get
