are after other and surer game."

The _Zodiac_ had by this time left the stranger far astern, and
numberless were the surmises of the crew as to what she was and what she
was about. All agreed in pronouncing her a Greek-built craft. She was
a large vessel, too, and well armed, if all the ports which showed on a
side had guns to them; and she was, probably, as are most of the Greek
vessels of that class, very fast. It is odd that they did not, however,
regard her with half the suspicion that they did the little speronara,
which could scarcely have harmed them, by mortal means, if she had
tried.

The _Zodiac_ had left the polacca brig about eight or ten miles astern,
and her topsails could just be seen rising and falling above the boiling
cauldron of waters which intervened, as she remounted the seas or sunk
into the trough between them.

The ship had also by this time assumed her usual peaceful appearance;
the shot and powder had been returned below, the guns were run in and
secured, the small arms had been replaced in their racks, and the
colonel had withdrawn the charges of his pistols, and sent Mitchell with
them to his cabin.

"Well, I suppose as soon as this tornado blows over, we shall have a
tranquil time of it, and hear no more of your Flying Dutchman and bloody
pirates," he observed to the master, as he held on the weather bulwarks.
"I did not bargain for all this sort of work, I can tell you, when I
refused a passage in a king's ship in order that I might avoid the
society of those young jackanapes of naval officers, and save my little
girl from being exposed to their interested assiduities."

"Can't say what may happen to us," returned Bowse, who was a great
stickler for the honour of the navy, and did not at all relish the
colonel's observations. "I've done my best to please you, and I'm sure
the officers of any of his Majesty's ships would have done the same.
I've belonged myself to the service, and have held the king's warrant,
and I have had as good opportunities of judging of the character of a
very large number of officers as any in the same station, and I must
say, sir, in justice to them, though with all respect to you, Colonel
Gauntlett, that a less interested and less money-loving set of men than
they are, are not to be found in any profession."

"Well, well, Mr Bowse," answered the colonel, seeing by the frown on
the master's good-natured countenance that he was in earnest, "I did not
wa