ain this enviable position; albeit we
were closely pressed by the frigates _Mermaid_ and _Quebec_, which were
thrashing along, the one on our lee bow and the other on our lee beam, a
distance of a bare cable's length separating the three ships from each
other. It was an interesting and exhilarating spectacle to watch these
two graceful craft leaping and plunging over the swift-rushing foam-
capped emerald surges, spurning them aside with their swelling bows and
shivering them into cloud-like showers of snowy spray which they dashed
as high as their fore-yards; now rolling heavily to windward as they
slid down into a liquid valley, and anon careering to leeward under the
influence of wind and wave, as they mounted to the succeeding crest,
until their wet gleaming sides and glistening copper flashed in the sun
almost down to their garboard strakes. Nor did our own ship present a
less gallant spectacle as she careered madly forward through the hissing
brine, now burying her bows deep in a fringe of yeasty foam, and next
moment soaring aloft as though she meant to forsake the ocean
altogether; her steeply-inclined deck knee-deep with the rushing
cataracts of water which poured over her to windward, her canvas tugging
at the stout spars until they bent and sprang like fishing-rods, and the
wind singing through her tautly-strained rigging as through the strings
of a gigantic Aeolian harp. The bearings of the chase were promptly
taken by Mr Southcott, the master; and a single hour sufficed to show
that we were not only fore-reaching, but also weathering upon her. By
that time we had brought her a couple of points abaft our weather-beam,
and the _Hermione_ was then hove about, this manoeuvre temporarily
bringing the chase fair in line with our jib-boom end; whilst the
_Mermaid_ lay broad away on our lee quarter fully a mile distant, with
the _Quebec_ half a mile astern of her. With the rising of the sun the
breeze freshened still more; and it soon became evident, from the first
lieutenant's manner, that he was beginning to feel anxious about his
spars. Captain Pigot, however, who was on deck, would not allow the
canvas to be reduced by so much as a single thread; so Mr Reid was at
length compelled (at considerable risk to the men who executed the duty)
to get up preventer back-stays fore and aft; and to this precaution was
doubtless due the ultimate success which crowned our efforts. Another
hour brought us fairly astern o