There was no jest in all this; so I had nothing for it but to walk silently along with my escort, after having gathered myself up as well as I could. We crept so close under the windows of the overseer’s house, where we picked up a lot of empty ankers, slung on a long pole, that I fancied I heard, or really did hear, some one snore--oh how I envied the sleeper! At length we reached the beach, where we found two men lying on their oars, in what, so far as I could distinguish, appeared to be a sharp swift-looking whale boat, which they kept close to, with her head seaward, however, to be ready for a start should any thing suspicious appear near to them. The boat-keeper hailed promptly, “Who goes there?” as they feathered their oars. “The tidy little Wave,” was the answer. No more words passed, and the men who had, in the first instance, pulled a stroke or two to give the boat way, now backed water, and tailed her on to the beach, when we all stepped on board. Two of my captors now took each an oar; we shoved off, and glanced away through the darkness, along the smooth surface of the sparkling sea, until we reached the schooner, by this time hauled out into the fairway at the mouth of the cove, where she lay hove short, with her mainsail hoisted up, riding to the land-wind, and apparently all ready to cants and be off the moment the boat returned. As we came alongside, the captain of her, my friend Obediah, as I had no difficulty in guessing, from his very out of the way configuration, dark as it was, called out, “I says, Paul, who have you got in the starn-sheets there?” “A bloody spy, captain; he who was with the overseer when he peppered your sheathing t’other morning.” “Oho, bring him on board--bring him on board. I knows there be a man-of-war schooner close aboard of the island somewheres hereabouts. I sees through it all, smash my eyes!--I sees through it. But what kept you, Paul? Don’t you see the morning star has risen?” By this time I stood on the deck of the little vessel, which was no above a foot out of the water; and Obediah, as he spoke, pointed to the small dark pit of a companion, for there was no light below, nor indeed anywhere on board, except in the binnacle, and that carefully masked, indicating by his threatening manner, that I was to get below as speedily as possible. “Don’t you see the morning star, sir? Why, the sun will be up in an hour, I calculate, and then the sea-breeze will be down on us before we get any thing of an offing.” The mention of the morning star recalled vividly to my recollection the scene I had so recently witnessed at the negro wake; it seemed there was another person beside poor Quacco, likely to be crammed into a hole before the day broke, and to be carried to Africa too, for what I knew; but one must needs go when the devil drives, so I slipped down into the cabin, and the schooner having weighed, made sail to the northward. CHAPTER VIII.--The Chase of the Smuggler