ate spoke truly. There evidently was a brig, though dimly visible,
hovering, as it were, like a dark spirit, in the quarter he indicated.

The crew soon discovered her also, and if any of them had before felt
inclined to seek rest below, they did so no longer.

Another hour passed away; but the stranger had not altered her position.
There she hung, like a dark shadow, indistinctly visible, yet causing
no doubt of something ominous of evil being there, as some bird of prey
hovering about, ready to pounce down any moment, and destroy them.

The morning light brought the stranger clearly in view, at about the
same distance; and at the same period of time the ship, righting
suddenly from the downward pressure, to which she had been so long
exposed, showed that there was a lull of the wind. It was but
momentarily, for again she heeled over as before. Again, however, she
righted, and this time, her lee scuppers remained for longer free of the
water.

Bowse looked to windward: he was about to order a couple of reefs more
to be shaken out of the topsails, when another violent blast almost laid
her on her beam ends.

The hardy crew, wearied with the unremitting exertions of the night,
looked at each other in despair, as the sea literally washed up the
decks to leeward. A loud crash was heard, and the fore-topmast went
over the side, carrying away the jibboom. It was the last expiring
effort of the gale.

The stranger now shook out all the reefs in her topsails and courses;
but it was soon evident that there was no occasion for her so doing, as
she continued to maintain the exact position she had held when first
seen in the morning.

The forenoon watch had just been set, when Colonel Gauntlett came on
deck.

"A nice night we've had of it, captain," he observed in a tone which
showed but little anxiety on his part. "It was only towards the morning
the infernal hubbub would allow me a moment's sleep. But, hillo! what
have you been doing with your foremast? Why, it's shorn of half its
just proportions. And a pretty work seems to have been going forward on
your deck. Why, I should have thought you had been in action already."

"With the winds and waves we have, sir," answered Bowse. "I wish we
were in a better condition to meet an enemy."

"Well, I wish we were, if there is a prospect of our seeing one again,"
said the colonel. "However, I suppose you've managed to give the go-by
to our friend, the _Flying Dut