at
by daybreak on the morrow we should have our neighbour under our guns,
and be able to give her an overhaul. The stars came out brilliantly,
and although the moon would not rise until after midnight--and would not
give us much light even then, since she had entered her fourth quarter--
we soon found that we should have light enough to prevent the barque
from giving us the slip, provided that we kept both eyes open.
Nevertheless, darkness had no sooner set in, than she made an effort to
do so by edging off to the northward, a couple of points, which move,
however, we soon detected and frustrated by steering directly after her.

During the night the wind breezed up again somewhat, and this gave the
chase so great an advantage that at daybreak she was still about eight
miles ahead. Shortly after sunrise, however, it dwindled away again,
and gradually dropped to a gentle air that barely fanned us along at a
speed of five knots.

By noon we had brought the chase to within five miles of us, and Ryan
deemed that the time had now arrived for us to declare ourselves; we
accordingly hoisted British colours, and fired a gun as a signal to the
barque to heave-to; the only notice taken of which was the exhibition of
Spanish colours by the chase, and the firing of a shotted gun of
defiance; so now at last we knew each other.

Meanwhile the wind was very gradually dropping, and the schooner as
gradually gaining upon the craft ahead, until at length, late in the
afternoon, we had reached within a mile and a half of her. And then
began one of those barbarous practices that I had heard of, but had
hitherto been scarcely able to credit as sober truth, namely, the
throwing of slaves overboard in order to retard pursuit by causing the
pursuer to stop and pick up the poor wretches, as British men-o'-war
invariably did whenever it was at all practicable.

The mode of procedure was generally to launch the unhappy black
overboard, securely lashed to a plank or piece of timber large enough to
float him, and as he was dropped exactly in the track of the pursuing
man-o'-war, he was certain to be seen by some one on board, and an
effort made to pick him up. In waters infested by sharks, however, this
had been found to be of very doubtful utility, since it happened as
often as not that long before the unfortunate wretch had served the
purpose for which he was sacrificed, the sharks had found him and torn
him to pieces. In order, therefore