pped off
the vessel put together in a heap under the bridge, as if her plunderers
intended returning for them, not having been able to carry them away at
their last trip; and, albeit he did not draw the attention of our first
lieutenant to this, to my knowledge, when talking to him, no doubt, from
the preparations he made, `old Hankey Pankey' drew his own conclusions.

His judgment was not at fault.

Hardly had the first flush of dawn tinted the yellow eastern sky with
its rosy light, heralding the glowing heat of day, ere one of the men
stationed in the tops hailed the deck.

"There's something moving away off on our weather bow," sang out the
man, shoving his head over the side of the top. "I can't make it out
exactly, sir; there's a haze on the water ahead."

The second lieutenant, who was acting as officer of the watch, being an
easy-going sort of chap and rather sleepy from being up pacing to and
fro on the bridge since midnight, did not pay much attention to this
intelligence.

"All right, lookout-man," he hailed back, after a portentous yawn.
"It's probably the morning breeze blowing the fog off the land that you
see. Tell me, a-a-ah! When you are able to make it out more clearly,
a-a-ah!"

And, he almost yawned himself out of his boots as he gave utterance to
the last word.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

BOARDING THE SLAVE DHOW.

"On deck, there!" shouted out the lookout-man again, almost before the
sound of Lieutenant Dabchick's last yawn had died away in the distance,
like a groan or its echo. "There's a whole fleet o' dhows a-creeping up
under the lee of the land and running before the wind to the north'ard,
sir!"

This stopped Mr Dabchick's yawns and made him open his sleepy eyes
pretty wide, I can tell you!

"A fleet of dhows, lookout-man!" he cried, fully awake at last, not only
in his own person, but as regarded the responsibility attaching to him
should he unhappily let our prey escape and so foil his captain's
carefully arranged plan. "Are you certain, Adams?"

"Not a doubt of it, sir," replied the captain of the foretop, in an
assured tone that expressed his confidence in his own statement.
"They're Arab dhows sure enough, sir. One--two--three; and, ay, there
is two more on 'em jist rounding the p'int--that makes five on 'em, sir,
all bearing to the north as fast as they can go, with slack sheets and
the breeze dead astern, which they are bringing up with them. They're
right off ou