human
Ship ahoy!
gpt
Hah! cried Morny.
human
Do you see the brig?
gpt
No, sir, replied the man, as Morny, the doctor and Rodd shaded their eyes and gazed down-stream;
human
I can't make out the brig.
gpt
Oh, you don't half look, cried Rodd.
human
There's the Spanish schooner, and ours, and just beyond them, half hidden by the trees and land, there are the tops of the masts of the brig. Hurrah, Morny! She's all right, afloat, and--Here, what are you looking that way for?
gpt
Because I can't see her, said the French lad despairingly.
human
There is something wrong.
gpt
Why, my dear old chap, cried Rodd,
human
I can see those two masts you mean, said Morny sternly,
gpt
So it is, cried Rodd.
human
I was deceived by the two yards on her foremast. But look here, it can't be another schooner. Captain Chubb may have been altering her rig when he got her upright again. Why, of course! It must be so. There can't be three schooners there. They must have had some accident to the brig's mainmast when they raised her again. Broke her topgallant, perhaps, and rigged her fore and aft.
gpt
Not they, Mr Rodd, sir. Our old man would have cut a spar somewhere from the forest and rigged her square, if it was only a jury-mast. 'Sides, they'd got spare spars on board, same as we. That's another schooner. You can see her clearer now--a long low one, with masts that rake more than the Spanish skipper's vessel. Strikes me as we shall find that for some reason or another they haven't got the brig afloat.
human
Another schooner, Joe? cried Morny passionately.
gpt
The brig not finished? For some reason or another! What reason? What does it all mean?
human
Be calm, my lad; be calm, cried the doctor.
gpt
In a very little while we shall know the worst, or the best. Mind, we know nothing as yet. It is all suspicion. For aught we can say to the contrary, that man whom we have condemned may be innocent, misjudged by us, and now be lying at the bottom of the river where we missed him in that mysterious way.