; the sky was an unbroken expanse of dark, slate-coloured cloud
athwart the face of which tattered shreds of dirty grey vapour rapidly
swept; the sea, of an opaque greyish-green tint, ran high and steep,
crested with great curling heads of pallid froth, flecked here and there
with fragments of seaweed, and our horizon was restricted to a circle of
little more than a mile in diameter by the driving mist and rain. It
was, in short, a thoroughly disagreeable day, and I was by no means
sorry that it was my forenoon watch below.

I had just finished breakfast when a cry of some sort from the deck
reached us in the midshipmen's berth; but the straining of the ship, the
howling of the wind through the rigging, and the constant crash and
gurgle of the water outside rendered it indistinguishable. We heard the
answering call of the officer of the watch--also indistinguishable--and
were beginning to arrive at the conclusion that the matter, whatever it
might be, did not concern us, when the shrilling of the boatswains'
pipes, followed by the hoarse bellow of "Hands, make sail!" caused a
general stampede for the deck, upon reaching which we learned that
during a momentary clearance of the atmosphere a brief glimpse had been
caught of a large ship, about a mile to leeward, steering north, under
topgallantsails, and that from her general appearance, brief though the
sight of her had been, she had been judged to be French. The officer of
the watch had, of course, as in duty bound, reported the matter to the
Captain, who was at the moment in his cabin, taking breakfast; and the
skipper, having heard Mr Galway's story, had promptly given the order
to bear up and make sail in chase.

The decks, which but a few minutes earlier had presented such a dreary,
deserted appearance, now became in a moment a scene of the most animated
bustle and activity. The Captain and first lieutenant--the latter with
a speaking-trumpet in his hand--were both on deck, the skipper on the
poop gazing eagerly into the thickness to leeward under the sharp of his
hand in search of the now invisible stranger; barefooted seamen sprang
nimbly hither and thither, some to the braces, some out on to the
jib-booms, and others into the rigging on their way aloft to loose the
furled canvas; the helm was put up, the fore yard swung, and the after
yards squared as the ship paid off; and in less than a minute the yards
were alive with men casting off gaskets, untying reef-