We hear his pleading voice, as his ruffian captors,
their prey secure, disappear among the busy crowd.
CHAPTER XLII.
HE WOULD DELIVER HER FROM BONDAGE.
ABOUT twelve o'clock of a hazy night, in the month of November, and
while Annette, in the hands of Mr. Pringle Blowers, with death-like
tenacity refuses to yield to his vile purposes, a little
taunt-rigged schooner may be seen stealing her way through the grey
mist into Charleston inner harbour. Like a mysterious messenger, she
advances noiselessly, gibes her half-dimmed sails, rounds to a short
distance from an old fort that stands on a ridge of flats extending
into the sea, drops her anchor, and furls her sails. We hear the
rumble of the chain, and "aye, aye!" sound on the still air, like
the murmur of voices in the clouds. A pause is followed by the sharp
sound of voices echoing through the hollow mist; then she rides like
a thing of life reposing on the polished water, her masts half
obscured in mist, looming high above, like a spectre in gauze
shroud. The sound dies away, and dimly we see the figure of a man
pacing the deck from fore-shroud to taffrail. Now and then he stops
at the wheel, casts sundry glances about the horizon, as if to catch
a recognition of some point of land near by, and walks again. Now he
places his body against the spokes, leans forward, and compares the
"lay" of the land with points of compass. He will reach his hand
into the binnacle, to note the compass with his finger, and wait its
traversing motion.
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