is resolve to cut matters as fine as possible, had overdone
the thing and allowed the quarry to escape, we were gladdened by the
hail from aloft of--

"Sail he! A large schooner just comin' out o' the river, sir."

"Ay, ay," answered the first lieutenant, whose watch it happened to be.
"Just keep your eye on her, my lad, and let me know how she steers when
she is clear of the bar."

We were heading to the southward at the time, and were about three miles
south of the river entrance, and some sixteen miles off the land; by
pretending therefore not to see her for the next quarter of an hour or
so, and keeping the _Psyche_ still heading to the southward, we should
afford the stranger an excellent opportunity to secure a sufficient
offing to make good her escape. Then we would heave about, make sail in
chase, drive her off the coast, and work in as close to the river's
mouth as we dared venture, when the ship was to be brought to an anchor,
and the boats manned, armed, and dispatched into the river.

Meanwhile, as previously arranged, Captain Harrison was aroused, and
informed of the fact that the decoy schooner, or what was assumed to be
such, had made her appearance and was now fairly at sea, steering a
little to the northward of west under a heavy press of sail; and close
upon the heels of the returning messenger the worthy skipper himself
appeared. He sprang upon a gun-carriage and peered intently shoreward
under the shade of his hand; but only the upper canvas of the stranger
was visible from our deck; and he impatiently hailed the look-out aloft
to give him a detailed description of the vessel. The fellow in the
cross-trees happened, however, to be a poor sort of unintelligent
fellow, and could say very little about the craft beyond stating the
fact that she was a schooner, painted black; that she sat deep in the
water, showed an immense spread of canvas, and appeared to be very fast.

"I have no sort of doubt that yonder schooner is the craft whose duty it
is to draw us off the coast and leave the way clear for the other
fellows to get out to sea," he said. "But I should like to have a
somewhat better description of her than that `sodger' up aloft there
seems able to give."

He glanced round the deck and his eye fell upon me.

"Ah, Mr Fortescue," he exclaimed, "you will doubtless be able to do
what I want. Just slip down into my cabin; you will find my glass
hanging above the head of my bunk. Throw the