Even with this little sail the hull was glancing
through the raging seas, or rather in their company, at a rate a little
short of ten miles in the hour.
Captain Truck was in the mizzen-rigging, bare-headed, every lock of hair
he had blowing out like a pennant. Occasionally he signed to the man at
the wheel which way to put the helm; for instead of sleeping, as many had
supposed, he had been conning the ship for hours in the same situation, As
Eve appeared, he was directing the attention of several of the gentlemen
to some object astern, but a very few moments put all on deck in
possession of the facts.
About a cable's length, on one of the quarters of the Montauk, was a ship
careering before the gale like themselves, though carrying more canvas,
and consequently driving faster through the water. The sudden appearance
of this vessel in the sombre light of the morning, when objects were seen
distinctly but without the glare of day; the dark hull, relieved by a
single narrow line of white paint, dotted with ports; the glossy
hammock-cloths, and all those other coverings of dark glistening canvas
which give to a cruiser an air of finish and comfort, like that of a
travelling carriage; the symmetry of the spars, and the gracefulness of
all the lines, whether of the hull or hamper, told all who knew anything
of such subjects, that the stranger was a vessel of war.
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