; can we land there?"

"Yes, I shall make sure that you land safely, and can despatch you to
Sierra Leone, from whence you can take ship for England, but--"

"Sail O!" shouted the lookout.

"Whereaway?" asked the captain promptly, seizing a deck trumpet and
abruptly turning from her to whom he had been speaking, while his whole
manner changed at once.

"A couple of points on the larboard beam, sir," answered the seaman.

"All hands, Mr. Faulkner, and 'bout ship; that square rig and the heavy
lift of those topsails tell what there must be below to sustain them.
Lively, sir, the 'Sea Witch' must show her qualities."

Miss Huntington had watched with some amazement these orders, and the
result of the same, and as she saw the beautiful craft in which she was
put at once on the opposite tack and steer boldly away from the shore
which had just been made, she could not help for a moment remembering
the words of the mate in the boat, that pirates sometimes were found in
these latitudes!

After a moment's thought she felt that she did Captain Ratlin injustice,
for whatever might cause him to flee from the sight of what she presumed
by his remarks to be a man-of-war, yet she felt that he could not be a
pirate. True, the vessel even to her inexperienced eye was very strongly
manned, and there was a severity of discipline observed on board that
was very different from what she had seen while they were in the
Indiaman, but that man could not be a pirate, she felt that he could
not--she would not do him the injustice to think it possible.

Let the stranger be whom he might, the "Sea Witch" seemed to have no
intention of making his acquaintance, and as easily dropped the topsails
of the vessel again as she had made them, while from the manner in which
the stranger steered, it was doubtful whether his lookout had made out
the "Sea Witch" at all--and so Captain Ratlin remarked to his first
officer, while he ordered the ship to be kept on her present course for
an hour, then to haul up on the wind and run in shore again.

"Is it usual, Captain Ratlin," asked the young and beautiful girl, "for
vessels on the coast to so dread meeting each other as to deliberately
alter their course when this seems likely to be the case?"

"Trade is peculiar on this coast, and men-of-warsmen take extraordinary
liberties on board such vessels as they happen to overhaul," was the
reply. "I always avoid their company when I can do so conveniently."