ward for any sign of the chase."

By the time that I got below again, and was once more seated at table,
the schooner was in stays, and immediately afterwards the long, easy,
floating and gliding movement of a vessel running off the wind was
exchanged for the quick, violent, jerking plunge and heavy lee lurches
of the same craft driven under a heavy pressure of canvas into a high
and steep head-sea. Ten minutes later I was again on deck.

"I was just thinkin', sir, of takin' in the to'garns'l," remarked
Simpson as I joined him on the weather side of our tiny quarter-deck,
where he was engaged in a futile endeavour to avoid the heavy showers of
spray that were now flying over our weather bow and as far aft as the
mainmast. "She's got a good deal more than she can comfortably carry,
and there's nothin' to be gained by whippin' the sticks out of her. I
believe she'd travel quite as fast, and a good deal easier, if that
to'garns'l was stowed, sir."

"Any sign of the chase yet, Mr Simpson?" said I.

"No, sir, not when I looked last, there wasn't," answered the carpenter.
"The mischief of it is that there's no knowin' where to look for her,
and it's as much as a man can do to make out the commodore in this
murk."

"Where is the commodore?" demanded I.

"Out there, dead to wind'ard of us, and about four mile away," answered
Simpson. "Better take in the to'garns'l, hadn't we, sir?" he continued,
cocking his eye aloft to where in the dim light the spar could be
faintly seen whipping and buckling like a fishing rod at every mad
plunge and heave of the sorely-overdriven little vessel. That she was
being overdriven was perfectly evident, not only from the tremendous
quantity of water that she was shipping forward at every furious dive
into the head-sea, but from the steep angle of her decks, which sloped
at an inclination of fully forty-five degrees with every lee roll, and
from the cataracts of green water that poured in over her lee rail upon
every such occasion; her decks, indeed, to leeward were so flooded that
no man could have passed along them to leeward without imminent risk of
being washed overboard.

"Yes," said I at last, "clew up your topgallant-sail, Mr Simpson, and
the topsail also while you are about it. You are right, the ship is
being over pressed, and I believe that what we may lose by taking the
square canvas off her will be more than made up to us by our gain in
weatherliness. She will look up nea