unt of wind, and so far this breeze that had come to
us was a mere breathing, just enough perhaps to waft us along at a speed
of about two knots, or two and a half, maybe, whereas what I wanted was
at least a seven-knot breeze, that would take us clean out of sight of
our starting-point before dawn. For I knew that, if the _Bangalore_ was
a clipper, so too was the _Francesca_; and if her people once caught
sight of so much as the heads of our royals from their own royal-yard,
they would chase us as long as there was the slightest hope of
overhauling us. And the knowledge of this fact made me wonder whether I
had not acted rather imprudently in stowing all the lighter sails,
instead of leaving them abroad to give us all the help of which they
were capable. I was just inwardly debating this point, and had arrived
at the conclusion that we ought to set them again, when the atmosphere
seemed suddenly to grow more dense, and in a moment down came the rain
in a regular tropical deluge, like the bursting of a waterspout, the
sails flapped to the masts, and we were becalmed again. This was
horribly vexatious, not to say disheartening; but, happily for our peace
of mind, it was a state of things that did not last long; it merely
meant a shift of wind, for presently, when the shower had ceased as
abruptly as it had begun, the breeze sprang up again, this time coming
out from the northward, and with gay and thankful hearts we squared away
before it, or rather, headed just far enough to the eastward of south to
permit everything set to draw properly. Moreover, the breeze gradually
but steadily freshened, until in about an hour from the time when the
ship first began to move we were going seven knots at the very least.

This was so far satisfactory, especially as the sky remained overcast
and the night intensely dark, rendering it utterly impossible to see
anything beyond a distance of three or four of the ship's lengths on
either hand, and I now had good hopes of running the brigantine out of
sight before daylight. That she was still engaged in the search for us,
however, soon became evident; for about three-quarters of an hour after
the springing up of the true breeze our attention was suddenly attracted
by the outburst of a brilliant glare of bluish-white light on our
port-quarter, which was nothing less than the brigantine burning
port-fires, probably in an attempt to discover our whereabouts by the
reflection of the light