chman_."

Bowse, whose spirits weariness and anxiety had much lowered, shook his
head, and pointed to the stranger.

"I wish I could say so, Colonel Gauntlett. There she is, as big as
life; and, what is more, may be alongside of us any moment those on
board her may desire."

"Ods life, then we shall have to fight her after all," exclaimed the
colonel, with animation. "It's a pity we didn't have it out yesterday,
and have enjoyed a quiet night's rest after it."

"I wish we had, sir," said the master, his spirits a little cheered by
the colonel's coolness. "We should have had an advantage we shall not
enjoy to-day. She has the weather gauge, and may select her own time to
engage us, and is, I suspect, but waiting till the sea goes down, when
she may run us alongside, and take advantage of the great superiority of
men she has, depend on it, on board her."

"We must see, however, what we can do," replied the colonel. "But,
after all, the fellow may be an Austrian. He has hoisted those
colours."

"Merely to blind us, sir, depend on it," answered the master. "He is
even now edging down upon us."

As he spoke, the stranger at length set his topgallant-sails and royals;
but if his intention was to run alongside, it was frustrated.

The varying wind, which had been gradually lulling, now on a sudden died
away completely, even before the sea created by the gale had had time to
go down, and the two vessels lay rolling from side to side like logs on
the water, without power to progress, just beyond the range of each
other's guns.

Those who have cruised in the Mediterranean Sea must have lively
recollections of the calms which have stopped their onward progress--the
slow rolling of the vessel without any apparent cause, the loud flapping
of the canvas against the masts seemingly feeling anger at its inaction,
the hot sun striking down on the decks and boiling up the pitch in the
seams between the planks, the dazzling glare too bright for the eyes to
endure from the mirror-like surface of the water, and, above all, the
consequent feelings of discontent, lassitude, and weariness.

Notwithstanding the heat and the motion, and the excessive weariness
they felt from their incessant toil, Bowse and his bold crew set
manfully to work to repair the damage the _Zodiac_ had received during
the storm. All hands laboured cheerfully, for they saw that everything
might depend on the speed with which they could get the ship to