ifle, and came
a point or two free, in consequence of which, when the passengers made
their appearance on deck next morning to get a breath or two of the
fresh sea air before breakfast, they found the ship bowling along at a
regular racing pace, with weather braces checked, sheets eased off, and
every possible studding-sail set on the weather side. The strange sail
was in sight, and still ahead--a shade on the _Flying Cloud's_ lee-bow,
if anything--but the distance between the two ships had been reduced to
something like nine miles. Like the _Flying Cloud_, the stranger was
covered with canvas from her trucks down; and it was evident, from the
circumstance of her still being ahead, that she was a remarkably fast
vessel. Captain Blyth had been on deck from shortly after sunrise, and,
notwithstanding a somewhat windy look in the sky, had himself ordered
the setting of much of the additional canvas which his ship now carried.
After getting matters in this direction to his mind, he had gone up
into the fore-top with his telescope and spent fully half an hour there
inspecting the stranger; and when he descended and met his passengers on
the poop, he announced that though still too far distant to permit of
actual identification, he was convinced that his first supposition was
correct, and that the stranger ahead was none other than the _Southern
Cross_.

"And he knows us, too," he added with a chuckle; "recognised us at
daybreak, and at once turned-to and set his stunsails. But let him,
ladies and gentlemen; we have the heels of him in this weather, and
we'll be abreast of him in time to exchange numbers before sunset to-
night."

In this assertion, however, Captain Blyth proved to be reckoning without
his host; for as the morning wore on the breeze freshened considerably,
obliging him to clew up and furl his skysails one after the other, and
then his royals, which seemed to give the leading ship an advantage.
For, whilst by noon the distance between the two vessels had been
reduced to about seven miles, after that hour the stranger was, by the
aid of Captain Blyth's sextant, conclusively proved to be holding her
own. It was an exciting occasion for all hands; the passengers entering
fully into the spirit of the time and exciting Captain Blyth's warmest
admiration by the sympathetic interest with which they listened over and
over again to his story of the long-standing rivalry existing between
himself and the skipper o