midnight
We have said that the little clipper numbered some hundred tons , but though her appearance would indicate this to be the case , yet your thorough-bred sailor would have marked how stiffly she bore so much top hamper , and would have judged more correctly by the depth of water that the schooner evidently drew . It was plain that she was deep and much heavier than she looked . A few sprightly Greek youths , in their picturesque costume were dispersed here and there in the waist and on the forecastle , while two or three persons wearing the same dress and evidently of that nation , were talking together in a group upon the weather-side of the quarter-deck . As the hours drew towards midnight , the schooner at length opened communication with the land by means of signal lanterns , and immediately after boats commenced to ply between the clipper and the shore , and continued to do so for several hours . It was plain enough to any one who knew the usages and trade of these waters , that the schooner was preparing to run a cargo of Circassian girls , the trade having been , as we have already shown , made contraband by the Russians . At last the clipper seemed to have received all on board that she expected in the shape of passengers , but still stood off and on for some reason until the breaking day began to tinge the mountain tops beyond Anapa ; when a last boat with five persons , one of whom was a female , came down to the clipper which was thrown in the wind 's eye long enough for those to get on board , or rather for three of them to do so ; and then , as the other two pulled back to the shore , the schooner gradually came round under the force of her topsail , and one sail after another was distended and sheeted home until she looked to those on shore as though enveloped in canvas , and drove over the waters like a flying cloud . One of those who pulled away from the schooner as she lay her course , would have been recognized by the reader as Krometz ; and now half way to the landing he motioned his companion to cease rowing , while he paused himself and looked after the receding clipper with a strange medley of expression pictured in his face .