studding-sails, hang out all the rags, and make the old drogher
walk."

Now came the rippling breeze all at once over the sea, fluttering
furtively for a minute or two, so as to make the top-sails of the brig
swell out and then fall back in a tremulous shiver; but again bulging
forward in a full-breasted curve, the vessel felt the tug, and began to
dash the spray from her bluff bows till it fell away beyond the lee
cathead in flying masses of foam. The studding-sail booms rolled out,
the sailors busied themselves aloft in making the additional sail, and
by-and-by the old brig floundered along, the bubbles gurgling out ahead
in the ruffled water, tipping over astern as the crests broke on her
quarter; at times plunging her bows into the rolling swell, but coming
up sturdily again, and so on as before.

Meanwhile the corvette had edged away in a parallel course with the
brig, running past her at first as if she were at anchor, when she let
her topgallant-sails slide down to the caps, and, with the weather clew
of her main-sail triced up, she held way with the brig a mile or more to
windward.

The moon was sinking well down in the west, and the clear, well-defined
crescent was occasionally obscured by the light fleecy clouds moving
under the influence of the trade wind, when, toward eight bells, the
moon gave one pure white glimmer, threw a rippling flood of light over
the waves, and sunk below the horizon. Still the stars twinkled and the
planets flamed out like young moons--masked at intervals by the
darkening clouds as they swept overhead in heavy masses--and tinging the
sea with shade, which would again break out in phosphorescent flashes as
the waves caught the reflection.

"Now, Madame Rosalie," said the kind old skipper, "it is nearly
midnight; take your last snooze in the old barky, and wake up bright and
happy for Port Royal and--you know who, in the morning."

The charming woman had been watching, with soul-rapt gaze, the lofty
hills of Jamaica from the last blaze of the setting sun, and until the
moon too had vanished and left only a dim blue haze over the island. She
started as the captain spoke, gave a deep sigh, kissed her hand to the
good old skipper, said "_Bon soir, mon ami_," and with a smile she
entered her cabin.

The black was seated within the partition of the apartment, near a small
swinging cot, urging it gently to and fro, and watching over his little
charge.

"Good-night, Banou," she said