Chapter 4. THE YELLOW FLAG

The schooner Farallone lay well out in the jaws of the pass, where the

terrified pilot had made haste to bring her to her moorings and escape.

Seen from the beach through the thin line of shipping, two objects stood

conspicuous to seaward: the little isle, on the one hand, with its palms

and the guns and batteries raised forty years before in defence of Queen

Pomare's capital; the outcast Farallone, upon the other, banished to the

threshold of the port, rolling there to her scuppers, and flaunting the

plague-flag as she rolled. A few sea birds screamed and cried about the

ship; and within easy range, a man-of-war guard boat hung off and on and

glittered with the weapons of marines. The exuberant daylight and the

blinding heaven of the tropics picked out and framed the pictures.

A neat boat, manned by natives in uniform, and steered by the doctor

of the port, put from shore towards three of the afternoon, and pulled

smartly for the schooner. The fore-sheets were heaped with sacks of

flour, onions, and potatoes, perched among which was Huish dressed as

a foremast hand; a heap of chests and cases impeded the action of the

oarsmen; and in the stern, by the left hand of the doctor, sat Herrick,

dressed in a fresh rig of slops, his brown beard trimmed to a point, a

pile of paper novels on his lap, and nursing the while between his feet

a chronometer, for which they had exchanged that of the Farallone, long

since run down and the rate lost.

They passed the guard boat, exchanging hails with the boat-swain's

mate in charge, and drew near at last to the forbidden ship. Not a cat

The Ebb-Tide