n
see him, yourself, sir."

Sharp enough we did look, all hands of us on deck, and, in less than a
minute, we caught a pretty good view of the stranger from the forecastle.
He might have been visible to us half a minute, in one of those momentary
openings in the mist, that were constantly occurring, and which enabled
the eye to command a range around the ship of half a mile, losing it
again, however, almost as soon as it was obtained. Notwithstanding the
distance of time, I can perfectly recall the appearance of that vessel,
seen as she was, for a moment only, and seen too so unexpectedly. It was a
frigate, as frigates then were; or a ship of that medium size between a
heavy sloop-of-war and a two-decker, which, perhaps, offers the greatest
proportions for activity and force. We plainly saw her cream-coloured, or
as it is more usual to term it, her _yellow_ streak, dotted with fourteen
ports, including the bridle, and gleaming brightly in contrast to the dark
and glistening hull, over which the mist and the spray of the ocean cast a
species of sombre lustre. The stranger was under his three top-sails,
spanker and jib, each of the former sails being double reefed. His courses
were in the brails. As the wind did not blow hard enough to bring a vessel
of any size to more than one reef, even on a bow-line, this short canvass
proved that the frigate was on her cruising ground, and was roaming about
in quest of anything that might offer. This was just the canvass to give a
cruiser a wicked look, since it denoted a lazy preparation, which might,
in an instant, be improved into mischief. As all cruising vessels, when on
their stations doing nothing, reef at night, and the hour was still early,
it was possible we had made this ship before her captain, or
first-lieutenant, had made his appearance on deck. There she was, at all
events, dark, lustrous, fair in her proportions, her yards looming square
and symmetrical, her canvass damp, but stout and new, the copper bright as
a tea-kettle, resembling a new cent, her hammock-cloths with the undress
appearance this part of a vessel of war usually offers at night, and her
quarter-deck and forecastle guns frowning through the lanyards of her
lower rigging like so many slumbering bull-dogs muzzled in their kennels.

The frigate was on an easy bow-line, or, to speak more correctly, was
standing directly across our fore-foot, with her yards nearly square. In a
very few minutes, each keepin