f the fore-rigging,
where it had little or no retarding effect upon her, surmounted its
crest with a long, easy roll, and then sank with equal smoothness down
into the trough, along which she sped lightly and swiftly as a petrel.
It added a good half-a-knot to her speed.

It was soon apparent that even this comparatively trifling advantage on
our part had not escaped the notice of our wary friend the skipper of
the barque; it suggested to him yet one more experiment, and he was not
slow to make it, keeping his ship away about a point and a half and
checking his braces accordingly. This proved very much more
satisfactory so far as he was concerned; for by four bells in the
afternoon watch we had lost sight of the barque's hull again, and it was
unmistakably evident that she was increasing her distance from us. We
held on, however, straight after her, as before; for although it was
undeniable that she was now drawing away from us, it was but slowly; it
would take her a good many hours to run us out of sight at that rate,
and we felt pretty confident that when the weather moderated--which we
hoped would be before long, as the glass indicated a slight rising
tendency--we should have her at our mercy. Meanwhile, however, we felt
that we must not count our chickens before they were hatched; for there
would be nearly an hour and a half of darkness between sunset and
moonrise, and in that time our crafty friend would be pretty certain to
attempt some new trickery if there seemed a ghost of a chance of its
proving successful.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE SLAVER'S RUSE.

The sun set that night in a broad bank of horizontal, mottled grey
cloud, through which his beams darted in golden splendour at brief
intervals for nearly half-an-hour after we had lost sight of the great
luminary himself; and just about the time that the spars and canvas of
the distant barque began to grow indistinct in the fast-gathering dusk
of evening, there occurred a noticeable decrease in the strength of the
wind, with every prospect of a tolerably fine night. Of course our
glasses were never off the chase for more than five minutes at a time,
but up to the moment when it became impossible to any longer distinguish
the movements of those on board, no attempt to increase her spread of
canvas had been observed. Whether by this apparent apathy her people
hoped to lull us into a condition of equal carelessness, it is of course
impossible for me to say; b