shore; and Bonnie was enabled to distinguish, in its stern-sheets, the
persons of his master, Ludlow, and the Patroon. He had been acquainted
with the seizure of the Coquette's barge, the preceding night, and of the
confinement of the crew. Its appearance in that place, therefore,
occasioned no new surprise. But the time which past while the men were
rowing up to the sloop-of-war, was filled with minutes of increasing
interest. The black abandoned his hoe, and took a position on the side of
the mountain, that gave him a view of the whole bay. So long as the
mysteries of the Lust in Rust had been confined to the ordinary
combinations of a secret trade, he had been fully able to comprehend them;
but now that there apparently existed an alliance so unnatural as one
between his master and the cruiser of the crown, he felt the necessity of
double observation and of greater thought.

A far more enlightened mind than that of the slave, might have been
excited by the expectation, and the objects which now presented
themselves, especially if sufficiently prepared for events, by a knowledge
of the two vessels in sight. Though the wind still hung at east, the cloud
above the mouth of the Raritan had at length begun to rise. The broad
fleeces of white vapor, that had lain the whole morning over the
continent, were rapidly uniting; and they formed already a dark and dense
mass, that floated in the bottom of the estuary, threatening shortly to
roll over the whole of its wide waters. The air was getting lighter, and
variable; and while the wash of the surf sounded still more audible, its
roll upon the beach was less regular than in the earlier hours of the day.
Such was the state of the two elements, when the boat touched the side
of the ship. In a minute it was hanging by its tackles, high in the air;
and then it disappeared, in the bosom of the dark mass.

It far exceeded the intelligence of Bonnie to detect, now, any further
signs of preparation, in either of the two vessels, which absorbed the
whole of his attention. They appeared to him to be alike without motion,
and equally without people. There were, it is true, a few specks in the
rigging of the Coquette, which might be men; but the distance prevented
him from being sure of the fact; and, admitting them to be seamen busied
aloft, there were no visible consequences of their presence, that his
uninstructed eye could trace. In a minute or two, even these scattered
specks were se