ve-to all night, like the rest of us, they have
ratched away through the fleet, and have disappeared away there in the
north-western board."

"There is a good deal of sound reason and common sense in that argument
of yours, George, and, upon my word, I don't know that we could do
better than act upon it," answered the skipper meditatively.

"The sooner the better, sir, I think, if you will excuse me for saying
so," answered I. "The frigate yonder is signalling to the gun-brigs,
who are all answering her; and that, to my mind, looks very much as
though the absence of the ship and the brigantine has just been
discovered. If so, we shall probably have some of the men-o'-war coming
through the fleet making inquiries. And although we have our papers to
show, I must confess I am not in love with the neighbourhood of those
gentry. They may take it into their heads to order us to keep company
until they can come aboard to examine our papers; and, should that
happen, we may say good-bye to twenty or thirty of our best men, to say
nothing of our chance of finding the brigantine. See, sir, the brigs
are shaking out a reef already."

"Ay, so they are," assented the skipper. "You are right, George; it is
high time for us to be off. You may make sail at once. Those brigs
sail fairly well in moderate weather, but they are very crank, and I
believe we can run away from them in such weather as this. Here is one
of them hereaway now, who looks as though she would like to have a word
with us. Give the little hooker all that she will bear, George; and if
that fellow wants to try his rate of sailing with us, he is heartily
welcome to do so."

I looked in the direction indicated by the skipper, and saw one of the
gun-brigs about a mile and a half astern, heading straight up for us,
with the men upon her yards shaking out a reef from her topsails. There
was no time to lose, so I sang out to the men; and, the tone of my voice
probably indicating the urgency of the case, they sprang into the
rigging and came tumbling aft, and almost as soon as the brig had got
her topsail-halliards sweated up, we were under double-reefed topsail,
double-reefed mainsail, foresail, fore-staysail, and jib, leaving the
rest of the fleet as though they had been at anchor. The brig astern
now fired a gun as a signal for us to heave-to, but the shot never came
near us, and the only notice that we took of it was to hoist our
colours. This caused the br