looking out for you during the last three or four days, for, with
such very fine weather as we have had lately, I expected you would
completely outsail us. How has the wind been with you? We have had it
light and shy, so far, during the entire voyage, except for the little
slant we got down channel on our first day out."

"Ah, yes!" remarked Captain Blyth; "you had the advantage of us there.
We had to beat the whole way from the Foreland to the Start."

"An advantage which is more than counterbalanced by your beautiful model
and your brand-new canvas," observed Spence. "Our sails are so worn and
thin that we can almost see through them; the wind goes through them
like water through a sieve. But I am just about to shift them for a new
suit, when I hope we shall be able to keep company with you at least as
far as the line, where, if, as is most probable, we fall in with calms,
I hope you and your passengers will do me the favour to come on board
and dine with us."

"That we will, with the greatest pleasure; and you and your passengers
will, I hope, favour us with a return visit--_if, when you have bent
your new canvas, you do not run away from us altogether_," retorted
Blyth. "Meanwhile," he continued, raising his voice as the _Flying
Cloud_ drew gradually ahead of the _Southern Cross_, "I am afraid we
must say good-bye for the present, as we seem to be slipping past you."

With this parting shot Captain Blyth again raised his cap politely, and
stepped down out of the rigging on to a hen-coop, and from thence to the
poop; and so the little verbal sparring match between the rival skippers
ended, each flattering himself that he had had the best of it, and that
he had come out well in the eyes of the little audience before which he
had been performing.

One thing, however, was certain, the _Southern Cross_ had sailed twenty-
four hours before her rival, and had by that rival been overtaken and
passed--fairly outsailed; and whether Captain Spence's somewhat laboured
explanation of this circumstance satisfied his passengers or not, it
assuredly did not satisfy himself. He was fain to confess--to himself--
that the hitherto invincible _Southern Cross_ had at length been
subjected to the ignominy of defeat. The thought was unendurable; there
could be no more happiness for him until the stain had been wiped from
his tarnished laurels. And to do this with the least possible loss of
time he at once went about the task