he wind on the starboard tack. We made short reaches, tacking every
hour, and had gone about for the third time when, just as the men were
coiling up the ropes fore and aft, the look-out reported:

"Sail, ho! straight ahead. Hard up, sir, or you will be into her."

Mr Austin, who had charge of the deck, sprang upon a gun, and peered
out eagerly ahead.

"Hard over, my man, _hard_ over!" he exclaimed excitedly; then
continued, after a moment of breathless suspense:

"All clear, all clear! we have _just_ missed her, and that is all. By
Jove, Hawkesley, that was a narrow squeak, eh? Why, it is surely the
_Vestale_! _Vestale_ ahoy!"

"Hillo!" was the response from the other craft, indubitably the brig
which we had fallen in with shortly after our first look into the Congo,
and which we had been given to understand was the _Vestale_, French gun-
brig.

"Have you sighted a sail of any kind to-day?" hailed Austin.

"Non, mon Dieu! We have not nevaire seen a sail until now since we
leave Sierra Leone four weeks ago."

This ended the communication between the two ships, the _Vestale_--or
whatever she was--disappearing again into the fog before the last words
of the reply to our question had been uttered.

"Well," said Mr Austin, as he jumped down off the gun, "I am
disappointed. When I first caught sight of that craft close under our
bows I thought for a moment that we had made a clever guess; that the
chase had doubled on her track, and that, by a lucky accident, we had
stumbled fairly upon her in the fog. But as soon as I caught sight of
the white figure-head and the streak round her sides I saw that I was
mistaken. Well, we _may_ drop upon the fellow yet. I would give a ten-
pound note this instant if the fog would only lift."

"I cannot understand it for the life of me," I replied in a dazed sort
of way, as I stepped gingerly down off the gun upon which I, like the
first lieutenant, had jumped in the first of the excitement.

Mr Austin looked at me questioningly.

"What is it that you cannot understand, Hawkesley?" he asked.

"That brig--the _Vestale_, as she calls herself--and all connected with
her," I answered.

"Why, what _is_ there to understand about her? Or rather, what is there
that is incomprehensible about her?" he asked sharply.

"_Everything_," I replied eagerly. "In the first place, we have only
the statement of one man--and he a member of her own crew--that she
actually _is_ the ver