It
was his practice, I had learned, to give a money bounty to the
first man who sighted an enemy if the discovery resulted in a
capture, and I was eager to win the prize, not more for its own
sake than as a means of standing well with the captain.
The sun rose over the hills of France as I sat at my post. For a
time I was entranced with the beauty of the sight, watching the
changing hues of the sky, as pink turned to gold, and gold merged
into the heavenly blue. But the morning air was chilly, and what
with the cold and my cramped position I was longing for release
when my eye was suddenly caught by what resembled the wing of a
bird on the horizon about west-southwest. Was it the sail of a
ship, I wondered, roused to excitement, or merely a cloud? Had old
Dilly observed it?
I durst not cry out lest I were mistaken; but, straining my eyes,
in the course of a few minutes I made out the speck to be beyond
doubt the royals of a distant ship.
"Sail ho!" I cried with all my might.
"Where away?" shouts the captain, and when I answered "About
west-sou'-west," he went to the companion way, reached for his
perspective glass, and, mounting the rigging, climbed as high as
the royal yard.
He took a long look through the glass, and then, shutting it up
with a snap, he cries:
"You're right, my lad, smite my taffrail if you're not. She's a
Frenchman, sure enough, and the bounty's yours if it comes to a
battering and grappling.
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