“Can ye see her from here, my lads?” he asked.
“Ay, Sir!” answered a half-dozen of voices:--“right ahead, Sir!”
Hildebrand, thus instructed, raised his hand over his eyes, and gazed in the direction specified with all his might. After a brief survey, he discerned a small slim object, like the trunk of a tree, on the edge of the horizon, which he readily recognised as the masts of a ship. On bringing it into view, he turned away from the forecastle, and stepped back to the quarter-deck.
“Thou mayst see her from the deck, now,” he said to Master Halyard, on coming up with that person. “Howbeit, I will even overhaul her from the mast-head.”
Without more words, he mounted into the shrouds, and proceeded, as on a previous occasion, to pass up aloft. He did not pause on his way, but ascended right up, over the topmast, and the top-gallant mast; and only stopped when he had gained the mast-head.
He remained in his elevated position for several minutes, and, as it seemed from the deck, gazed intently for’ard the whole time. At last, his curiosity appeared to be satisfied; and, step by step (yet not over-carefully), he descended to the deck again.
Master Halyard waited his return with some impatience.
“What cheer, Sir?” he inquired, as Hildebrand set his foot on the deck.
“A large galleon, Sir, big enough to eat us,” answered Hildebrand. “By my troth, she will have a store of doubloons aboard!”
Master Halyard involuntarily thrust his hands into his pockets; and, quite forgetful of his situation, began to hum a song.
“An’ she be well in the wake of the fleet,” observed Hildebrand, after a moment’s reflection, “methinks we might even venture it.”
“Let me perish else,” answered Halyard, whom the result of his search in his pockets, now that an attack on the galleon appeared uncertain, rendered desperate. “Hang me up, an’ I would not venture it in an old hen-coop.”
“We will see to ’t, then,” rejoined Hildebrand. “Let all the spare hands turn in, and take an hour’s rest. We will be up with her by ten o’clock!”
Reassured by a prospect so promising, Master Halyard thrust his hands into his pockets again; and hastened, in compliance with Hildebrand’s instructions, to order all the men that were not required for the navigation of the ship to take an hour’s rest. Having seen his order obeyed, he returned to the quarter-deck; and there, with becoming gravity, but not with any dread or apprehension of the result, arranged with Hildebrand how they could best realize their project of attacking the supposed galleon.