"
Merry waited the result of the lieutenant's examination with youthful
impatience, and did not fail to ask immediately:
"Can you make it out, sir? is it the ship or the cutter?"
"Come, there seemeth yet some hope left for us, boy," returned
Barnstable, closing the glass; "'tis a ship lying-to under her
maintopsail. If one might but dare to show himself on these heights, he
would raise her hull, and make sure of her character! But I think I know
her spars, though even her topsail dips, at times, when there is nothing
to be seen but her bare poles; and they shortened by her top-
gallantmasts."
"One would swear," said Merry, laughing, as much through the excitement
produced by this intelligence, as at his conceit, "that Captain Munson
would never carry wood aloft, when he can't carry canvas. I remember,
one night, Mr. Griffith was a little vexed, and said, around the
capstan, he believed the next order would be to rig in the bowsprit, and
house lowermasts!"
"Ay, ay, Griffith is a lazy dog, and sometimes gets lost in the fogs of
his own thoughts," said Barnstable; "and I suppose old Moderate was in a
breeze. However, this looks as if he were in earnest; he must have kept
the ship away, or she would never have been where she is; I do verily
believe the old gentleman remembers that he has a few of his officers
and men on this accursed island. This is well, Merry; for should we take
the abbey, we have a place at hand in which to put our prisoners.
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