“Ay, ay,” was thrown back from a clear voice, that swept across the water with a fullness that needed no factitious aid to render it audible. “Ay, there comes one of the lieutenants, with his ay, ay,” said Boltrope--“pipe the side, there, you boatswain's mate! But here's another fellow more on our quarter! Boat ahoy!” “Alacrity”--returned another voice, in a direction different from the other. “Alacrity! There goes my commission of captain of this craft, in a whiff,” returned the sailing-master. “That is as much as to say, here comes one who will command when he gets on board. Well, well, it is Mr. Griffith, and I can't say, notwithstanding his love of knee-buckles and small wares, but I'm glad he's out of the hands of the English! Ay, here they all come upon us at once! here is another fellow, that pulls like the jolly-boat, coming up on our lee-beam, within hail--let us see if he is asleep--boat ahoy!” “Flag,” answered a third voice from a small, light-rowing boat, which had approached very near the cutter, in a direct line from the cliffs, without being observed. “Flag!” echoed Boltrope, dropping his trumpet in amazement--“that's a big word to come out of a jolly-boat! Jack Manly himself could not have spoken it with a fuller mouth; but I'll know who it is that carries such a weather helm, with a Yankee man-of-war's prize! Boat ahoy! I say.” This last call was uttered in those short menacing tones, that are intended to be understood as intimating that the party hailing is in earnest; and it caused the men who were rowing, and who were now quite close to the cutter, to suspend their strokes, simultaneously, as if they dreaded that the cry would be instantly succeeded by some more efficient means of ascertaining their character. The figure that was seated by itself in the stern of the boat started at this second summons, and then, as if with sudden recollection, a quiet voice replied: “No--no.” “'No--no,' and 'flag,' are very different answers,” grumbled Boltrope; “what know-nothing have we here?” He was yet muttering his dissatisfaction at the ignorance of the individual that was approaching, whoever it might be, when the jolly-boat came slowly to their side, and the Pilot stepped from her stern-sheets on the decks of the prize. “Is it you, Mr. Pilot?” exclaimed the sailing-master, raising a battle-lantern within a foot of the other's face, and looking with a sort of stupid wonder at the proud and angry eye he encountered--“Is it you! Well, I should have rated you for a man of more experience than to come booming down upon a man-of-war in the dark, with such a big word in your mouth, when every boy in the two vessels knows that we carry no swallow-tailed bunting abroad! Flag! Why you might have got a shot, had there been soldiers.”