at off a
brig half their own size--there's no way but to run for it, and these
rascals always have a swift craft--generally a Baltimore clipper,
which is just the fastest and prettiest vessel in the world, if those
pesky Yankees do build them--but the Betsy Allen aint a slow craft,
and we'll do the best we can to show 'em a clean pair of heels."

"You are to windward of them, captain," said Julia.

"Yes, that's true; but these clippers sail right in the teeth of the
wind; see, now, how they've neared us--ahoy!--all hands ahoy!"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"'Bout ship, my boys--let go the jibs--lively, boys; now the fore
peak-halyards. There she is--that throws the strange sail right
astern; and a stern chase is a long chase."

Three or four hours of painful anxiety succeeded, when it became
evident even to the unpracticed eyes of Julia and her father, that the
strange vessel was slowly but surely overhauling them. Yet the brave
girl showed none of the usual weakness of her sex, and even encouraged
her father, who, though himself a brave man, yet trembled as he
thought of the probable fate of his daughter. As for poor John, that
unfortunate individual was so completely beside himself, that he
wandered from one part of the vessel to the other, asking each sailor
successively what his opinion of the chances of escape might be, and
what treatment they might expect from the pirates after they were
taken. As may be imagined, he received little consolation from the
hardy tars, who, although themselves well aware of their probable
fate, yet had been too long schooled in danger to show fear before the
peril was immediately around them, and were each pursuing the duties
of their several stations, very much as if only threatened with the
usual dangers of the voyage. The unmanly fears of John even induced
them to play upon his anxiety, and magnify his terror.

"Why, John," said his old friend, who had so scientifically cured him
of his sea-sickness, and toward whom John evinced a kind of filial
reverence, placing peculiar reliance upon every thing said by the
worthy tar, "why, John, they will make us all walk the plank."

"Will they--O, dear me! and what is that, does it hurt a fellow?"

"O, no! he dies easy."

"Dies! oh, lud!"

"Why, yes! you know what walking the plank is, don't yer?"

"No I don't. O, dear!"

"Well, they run a plank over the side of the ship, and ask you very
politely to walk out to the end of it."

"O, lud