they found it difficult to conceal their
delight when Johnson, abandoning his post near the helmsman, joined
them.

"Well, strangers," he remarked with a grim smile, "there's a chance for
you yet, you see. That's one of them cursed frigates you was talking
about this morning, colonel, but she's a tarnation sight smarter'n I
gave any of 'em credit for being. I tell you, cap'n, if this had been
the forenoon-watch instead of the first dog-watch it would have been all
up with this brig. But now I don't feel quite so sorter anxious as I
did. I reckon that unless the breeze freshens, which it ain't going to
do, it will take that craft till midnight to get alongside of us; and if
she can do it then, why she's welcome to the brig and all aboard of her,
curse me if she ain't. See them clouds gathering, away there to the
nor'ard? That's a thunder-storm working up, but it won't break for some
hours yet, I calculate, and them clouds is going to do me a good turn
before that. I reckon you'll have to make up your minds to go to
Albatross Island yet, strangers."

And he dived below to his cabin, evidently in an easier state of mind
than he had enjoyed an hour before.

By six o'clock the frigate's topsails had risen more than half their
height above the horizon, and when Lance, Captain Staunton, and Bowles
returned to the deck after the evening meal, the waning light just
enabled them to see the stranger's lower yards fairly clear of the
water. Before they lost sight of her altogether half her courses had
risen into view.

The night closed down very dark, there being no moon, and the sky was
entirely overspread with heavy black murky-looking thunder-clouds which
completely hid the stars. The wind, too, had dropped to such an extent
that an occasional ominous flap was heard from the canvas aloft, though
the brig still slid through the water at the rate of about four knots in
the hour.

Johnson was in high spirits again. He sat aft near the taffrail,
attentively watching the frigate through his night-glass long after she
had disappeared from the naked eye; and when it at last became difficult
to make her out even with the aid of the glass, he would lay it down,
rub his eyes, take half a dozen turns along the deck, then pick up the
glass again and have another spell at it. Finally he turned to the
mate, who was standing near him, and tendering the glass, said--

"There, take a look, Ben, and tell me if you can pick her o