ply. "In light winds,
such as this, I have never seen anything to approach this cutter for
speed; but should it come on to blow, the `Vigilant' will run us under
water."

This was a singularly agreeable piece of information to receive just at
that moment, for the sky had gradually become flecked with fast-flying
patches of scud, and a dark threatening bank of cloud was working up to
windward. So far, however, the breeze remained light, and while we were
gliding through the water at the rate of something like five knots, with
scarcely a ripple under our bows to indicate the fact, the guarda-costa
appeared to have little beyond bare steerage-way.

At first I was sanguine enough to hope that, seeing how we slipped away
from her, the lateener would 'bout ship, and return to her moorings; but
nothing of the kind: she held on like grim death, her skipper, no doubt,
being seaman enough to read in the increasingly-threatening aspect of
the heavens a promise that his turn should come by-and-by.

In the meantime the wind grew rapidly lighter until it became
"breathless" calm; and there we both lay, heaving sluggishly on the long
swell, our sails flapping idly from side to side, and our bows boxing
the compass.

The cloud-bank meanwhile had been steadily rising, and at length it
completely veiled the sky, obscuring first the stars, and finally the
moon, and enveloping the whole face of nature in a mantle of inky
blackness. So intense was this darkness that we lost sight of the
guarda-costa, the land, and in fact everything save the two or three
riding-lights which the more prudent of the skippers had chosen to
display on board their craft in the roadstead.

A breathless hush prevailed, broken only by the loud creak of our boom
and the flap of the sails. Giaccomo and his shipmate, or prisoner--
whichever the reader likes--were somewhere forward, probably sitting
down; but it was impossible to see them in the impenetrable darkness.

I called Giaccomo aft, and his voice, when he spoke in reply, sounded
strange, weird, and unnatural. I considered the aspect of the sky
portentous in the extreme, but I wished to have his opinion, as that of
a man accustomed to the weather of that region, and I asked him what he
thought of it.

"We shall have it down upon us very heavily before long," he replied;
"but I do not think it will last above three or four hours."

"Then we had better bear a hand and shorten sail," said I. "You ta