ul business, and that the person who gives
the cause for the fight does a very wicked thing, utterly hateful in the
sight of God. Never let that truth be forgotten.

Darkness was now rapidly coming on. The stranger could just be seen
looming through it. Captain Lascelles felt pretty confident, however,
that he should come up with her before she could make her escape. Night
at last settled completely down over the ocean; still she could be seen,
though very indistinctly. On the two ships flew before the breeze. At
length the master, who had been examining the chart in his cabin, came
up to the captain.

"We are drawing in very near to the coast, sir," said he. "It will be
safer to keep the lead going."

"But where the ship ahead can float so can we," observed Captain
Lascelles.

"She may manage to run in between reefs on which we may strike. Never
let us trust to the leading of an enemy, sir," was the answer.

"You are right, master, you are right!" exclaimed Captain Lascelles, in
a tone of warm approval. "Send a hand with the lead into each of the
chains. We'll run no risk of casting the ship away."

Soon the voices of the leadsmen were heard through the still silence of
night, as the gallant frigate clove her way through the calm waters.

"By the deep nine," sang out one on the starboard side.

"By the mark seven," was soon afterwards heard from the man in the port
chains.

"Quarter less six," was the next shouted out.

"We are shoaling our water rapidly," observed Captain Lascelles to the
first lieutenant. "Stand by to go about."

All eyes had been fixed on the dark mass ahead. Onward it seemed to
glide through the darkness. Every one felt certain that their eyes did
not deceive them. There still appeared, they all believed, the sails of
the stranger, a huge towering pinnacle reaching to the sky. Yet so near
the ground were they that it was dangerous for the frigate, though of
course drawing much less water, to stand on.

"Was she a ship of mortal fabric?" some of the more superstitious among
the seamen began to ask.

As they looked, the tall pyramid seemed to rock, and then suddenly to
dissolve into the air. A sound, at the same time, came from the
southward, as if of breakers dashing on a rocky shore.

"Hands about ship," shouted the captain, with startling energy.

The cry was repeated by the first lieutenant, and quick almost as the
answer of an electric message, the boatswain's w