74 THE CRATER; the Rancocus, were all engaged in looking at the stran ger. " Tis the Mermaid," said Mark to Betts, " and it s all right. Though what that craft can be doing here to wind ward of the islands is more than I can imagine !" " Perhaps, sir, they s a cruising arter us/ answered Bob. " This is about the time they ought to be expectin on us; and who knows but Madarn Woolston and Friend Marthy may not have taken it into their heads to come out a bit to see arter their lawful husbands?" The governor smiled at this conceit, but continued his observations in silence. " She behaves very strangely, Betts," Mark, at length, said. " Just take a look at her. She yaws like a galliot in a gale, and takes the whole road like a drunken man. There can be no one at the helm." "And how lubberly, sir, her canvas is set! Just look at that main-taw-sail, sir ; one of the sheets isn t home by a fathom, while the yard is braced in, till it s almost aback !" The governor walked the deck for five minutes in in tense thought, though occasionally he stopped to look at the brig, now within a league of them. Then he suddenly called out to Bob, to " see all clear for action, and to get everything ready to go to quarters." This order set every one in motion. The women and children were hurried below, and the men, who had been constantly exercised, now, for five months, took their sta tions with the regularity of old seamen. The guns were cast loose ten eighteen-pound carronades and two nines, the new armament cartridges were got ready, shot placed at hand, and all the usual dispositions for combat were made. While this was doing, the two vessels were fast drawing nearer to each other, and were soon within gun shot. But, no one on board the Rancocus knew what to make of the evolutions of the Mermaid. Most of her or dinary square-sails were set, though not one of them all was sheeted home, or well hoisted. An attempt had been made to lay the yards square, but one yard-arm was braced in too far, another not far enough, and nothing like order appeared to have prevailed at the sail-trimming. But, the conning of the brig was the most remarkable. Her general
