t
he thought him perfectly right, and, consequently, he was bound to
protect him by every law of hospitality as well as gratitude, after his
services in saving the lives of their countrymen.

This did not satisfy the crew; they were clamorous for punishment, and a
mutiny was actually headed by the second mate. There was, however, a
large party on board who were in no humour to see an Englishman treated
with such indignity. Of what country they were may readily be
conjectured. The dispute ran high; and I began to think that serious
consequences might ensue, for it had continued from the serving of grog
at twelve o'clock till near two; when casting my eyes over the larboard
quarter, I perceived a sail, and told the captain of it; he instantly
hailed the look-out-man at the mast-head; but the look-out-man had been
so much interested with what was going on upon deck, that he had come
down into the maintop to listen.

"Don't you see that sail on the larboard quarter?" said the captain.

"Yes, sir," said the man.

"And why did you not report her?"

The man could make no reply to this question, for a very obvious reason.

"Come down here," said the captain; "let him be released, Solomon; we
will show you a little Yankee discipline."

But before we proceed to the investigation of the crime, or the
infliction of punishment, we must turn our eyes to the great object
which rose clearer and clearer every five minutes above the horizon.
The privateer was at this time under topsails, and top-gallant-sails,
jib, and foresail, running to the north-east, with a fine breeze and
smooth water.

"Leftenant," said the captain, "what you think of her?"

"I think," said I, "that she is an extra Indiaman; and if you mean to
speak her, you had better put your head towards her under an easy sail;
by which means you will be so near by sunset, that if she runs from you,
you will be able, with your superior sailing, to keep sight of her all
night."

"I guess you are not far wrong in that," said the captain.

"I guess he is directly in the face of the truth," said the chief mate,
who had just returned from the maintop, where he had spent the last
quarter of an hour in the most intense and absorbed attention to the cut
of the stranger's sails. "If e'er I saw wood and canvas put together
before in the shape of a ship that there is one of John Bull's bellowing
calves of the ocean, and not less than a forty-four gunner."

"What say you