m from which the five ringleaders of the pirates taken
aboard the brigantine had been launched into eternity.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

H.M.S. WASP.

We sighted the _Wasp_ immediately upon rounding Gallows Point. She was
lying quite by herself, down in the most southerly bight of the Hole,
and little more than a cable's length from the beach; consequently we
had a clear, uninterrupted view of her the moment that we cleared the
Point; and she was lying broadside-on to us, with her head pointing to
the southward.

The first thing that impressed me about her was her diminutiveness; in
comparison with some of the craft lying in the Hole she looked little
more than a mere boat, and the idea of actually going to sea and
attempting serious work in such a cockle-shell struck me as little short
of an absurdity. But that feeling wore off a bit as we closed with her;
and the next thing to attract my attention was the great beauty of her
outline. She sat very low upon the water; had an abnormally long,
overhanging counter; and her spring, or sheer, was so great that, low as
she sat, her bow stood high and dominant above the water. She was
painted black from her rail to her copper, the top edge of which was
about six inches above her load-line; and she had only her two
lower-masts and her bowsprit standing. But her masts were magnificent
sticks, lofty enough, apparently, to spread all the canvas that she
could possibly carry, without any need of topmasts, and both spars were
stepped well forward; the mainmast, indeed, seemed to be almost
amidships, giving one a very clear idea of the enormous area which her
mainsail would present when fully set. It was not, however, until we
got close to her, and Carline caused his boatmen to pull slowly round
her, that I detected what the Admiral and the master-attendant meant
when they had spoken of the freakish peculiarities of her model; then,
indeed, it became apparent that her designer had, as Sir Peter had said,
literally turned her lines end for end, as it were. For she had
absolutely no "straight of breadth" at all; her sides were as round as
an apple, and her long bow, shaped like a wedge with curved instead of
straight sides, with just a suggestion of hollowness of the water-line
as it approached the stem, started almost as far aft as the point where
her mainmast was stepped; while her run, instead of fining away toward
the stern-post like the tail of a fish, was quite full, sweepi