Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

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"Very good, sir."

The main-deck guns were being run out with a threatening rumble--the distant thunder of the approaching storm--while on the spar deck the crews of the carronades adjusted their pieces for elevation and primed the vents. The Delaware was singing through the sea; running thus, two points free, was perhaps her best point of sailing, and there was most decidedly a chance that she would pass ahead of the quarry.

"Get the stuns'l in, Mr. Hubbard."

"Aye aye, sir."

There was not much chance of danger. A brig-rigged vessel even if she were a man-of-war, was bound to be smaller than a big frigate like the Delaware; if she were part of a convoy the escort would have been to windward of her and in plain sight. She must be sailing alone, and in that case she might be perhaps an American privateer or one of those footy little British Post Office packets. Peabody called up before his mind's eye the memory of those topsails silhouetted against the sky. Yes. The chances were that she was a Post Office packet, and in that case she must be overwhelmed before she could throw her mail bags overside. Yet at the same time he must be quite certain that she was not an American privateer; it would be disastrous if she were and he fired into her.