pical sunset.

We pulled off to a distance of about a hundred yards from the schooner;
and then, as with one consent, the men laid in their oars and waited to
see the last of the little hooker. Her end was manifestly very near,
for she had settled to the level of her waterways, and was rolling
occasionally on the long, level swell with a slow, languid movement that
dipped her rail amidships almost to the point of submergence ere she
righted herself with a stagger and hove her streaming wet side up toward
us, all a-glitter in the ruddy light of the sunset, as she took a
corresponding roll in the opposite direction; and we could hear the rush
and swish of water athwart her deck as she rolled. She remained thus
for some three or four minutes, each roll being heavier than the one
that had preceded it, when, quite suddenly, she seemed to steady
herself; then, as we watched, she slowly settled down out of sight, on a
perfectly even keel, the last ray of the setting sun gleaming in fire
upon her gilded main truck a moment ere the waters closed over
it.--"_Sic transit_!" muttered I, as I turned my gaze away from the
small patch of whirling eddies that marked the spot where the little
beauty had disappeared, following up the reflection with the order:
"Hoist away the canvas, lads, and shape for Sierra Leone!"

Five minutes later we were speeding gaily away, with the wind over our
starboard quarter and the sheets eased well off, the gig, with her finer
lines and lighter freight, revealing so marked a superiority in speed
over the longboat, in the light weather and smooth water with which we
were just then favoured, that she was compelled to luff and shake the
wind out of her sails at frequent intervals to enable us to keep pace
with her. Meanwhile, the pirate brig, which, like ourselves, had gone
off before the wind, had sunk below the horizon to the level of her
lower yards. I had, between whiles, been keeping the craft under fairly
steady observation, for what Simpson had said relative to the behaviour
of her captain, and the attitude of doubt and suspicion which the latter
had exhibited when leaving the _Dolores_, had impressed me with the
belief that he would possibly cause a watch to be maintained upon the
schooner until she should sink, with the object of assuring himself that
none of us had escaped to tell the tale of his atrocious conduct. As I
have already mentioned, the _Dolores_ happened to founder at the precise