Spike was only great in a crisis, and then merely as a seaman. He understood his calling to its minutiæ, and he understood the Molly Swash better than he understood any other craft that floated. For more than twenty years had he sailed her, and the careful parent does not better understand the humours of the child, than he understood exactly what might be expected from his brig. His satisfaction sensibly increased, therefore, as she stole along the land, toward the angle mentioned, without a sound audible but the gentle gurgling of the water, stirred by the stem, and which sounded like the ripple of the gentlest wave, as it washes the shingle of some placid beach.
As the brig drew nearer to the bluff, the latter brought the wind more ahead, as respected the desired course. This was unfavourable, but it did not disconcert her watchful commander.
"Let her come round, Mr. Mulford," said this pilot-captain, in a low voice--"we are as near in as we ought to go."
The helm was put down, the head sheets started, and away into the wind shot the Molly Swash, fore-reaching famously in stays, and, of course, gaining so much on her true course. In a minute she was round, and filled on the other tack. Spike was now so near the land, that he could perceive the tide was beginning to aid him, and that his weatherly set was getting to be considerable. Delighted at this, he walked aft, and told Mulford to go about again as soon as the vessel had sufficient way to make sure of her in stays. The mate inquired if he did not think the revenue people might suspect something, unless they stood further out toward mid-channel, but Spike reminded him that they would be apt to think the schooner was working up under the southern shore, because the ebb first made there. This reason satisfied Mulford, and, as soon as they were half-way between the bluff and the steamer, the Swash was again tacked, with her head to the former. This manoeuvre was executed when the brig was about two hundred yards from the steamer, a distance that was sufficient to preserve, under all the circumstances, the disguise she had assumed.
"They do not suspect us, Harry!" whispered Spike to his mate. "We shall get to windward of 'em, as sartain as the breeze stands. That boatin' gentleman might as well have staid at home, as for any good his hurry done him or his employers!"