ion that will remove the spell.
It is a living nightmare, from which the soul pants to be free.

With torments like these, I paced the deck for half an hour beneath
the awning, when, seizing a telescope and mounting the rigging, I took
deliberate aim at the annoyer. He was full seven or eight miles away
from us, but very soon I saw, or fancied I saw, a row of ports, which
the Dane had not: then sweeping the horizon a little astern of the
craft, I distinctly made out three boats, fully manned, making for us
with ensigns flying.

Anxious to avoid a panic, I descended leisurely, and ordered the
sweeps to be spread once more in aid of the breeze, which, within the
last ten minutes, had freshened enough to fan us along about a knot an
hour. Next, I imparted my discovery to the officers; and, passing once
more among the men to test their nerves, I said it was likely they
would have to encounter an angrier customer than the Dane. In fact, I
frankly told them our antagonist was unquestionably a British cruiser
of ten or twelve guns, from whose clutches there was no escape, unless
we repulsed the boats.

I found my crew as confident in the face of augmented risk as they had
been when we expected the less perilous Dane. Collecting their votes
for fight or surrender, I learned that all _but two_ were in favor of
resistance. I had no doubt in regard _to the mates_, in our
approaching trials.

By this time the breeze had again died away to utter calmness, while
the air was so still and fervent that our sweltering men almost sank
at the sweeps. I ordered them in, threw overboard several water-casks
that encumbered the deck, and hoisted our boat to the stern-davits to
prevent boarding in that quarter. Things were perfectly ship-shape all
over the schooner, and I congratulated myself that her power had been
increased by two twelve pound carronades, the ammunition, and part of
the crew of a Spanish slaver, abandoned on the bar of Rio Pongo a week
before my departure. We had in all seven guns, and abundance of
musketry, pistols and cutlasses, to be wielded and managed by
thirty-seven hands.

By this time the British boats, impelled by oars alone, approached
within half a mile, while the breeze sprang up in cat's-paws all round
the eastern horizon, but without fanning us with a single breath.
Taking advantage of one of these slants, the cruiser had followed her
boats, but now, about five miles off, was again as perfectly becalmed
a