fully
took her bearings, dowsed our canvas, and pulled leisurely towards her.
At last, when we thought we were beginning to near her, we muffled our
oars, and then paddled on again, both boats within oar's length of each
other.

"We pulled for about an hour, and then waited for some sign of her
whereabouts--for we reckoned we must be close aboard of her--but it was
that dark you couldn't see the length of your nose. After waiting a
goodish spell--none of us speaking a word for fear of giving an alarm--
we hears eight bells struck, somewhere away upon our port quarter.

"We had passed her, so we pulled very quietly round and just paddled in
the direction we thought she was lying. In about five minutes the
Yankee says, `I see her,' says he; and we stopped paddling. The pinnace
was hanging on astern of us, so's we shouldn't lose one another in the
dark; and she was hauled up, the men in her told what to do, and the
ship pointed out to them; and then we pulled away very quietly again.

"By this time we could just make out a dim something towering up in the
darkness, which we knew to be her sails. In another minute our boat was
alongside on her starboard quarter, and the pinnace on her larboard
quarter; we shinned up her low sides, and before the watch on deck could
rub their eyelids open, we had her.

"She turned out to be a little Yankee brig, with a cargo of sandalwood,
and was bound to Canton.

"Some of her crew joined us, the rest--the poor skipper and the first
mate among 'em--was hove overboard, and the sharks had a good meal. She
mounted four sixes, and had a well-stocked arm-chest, so that, with the
arms we brought with us from the old _Amazon_, we was pretty well off.
We mustered a good strong crew too--twenty-nine altogether, counting the
Lascars--so, as the brig was a beautiful model, and, we soon found,
sailed like a witch, our skipper decided to set up for a pirate at once.

"Well, gentlemen, it kept stark calm for two whole days after we'd took
the brig, and Johnson--that was the Yankee's name, Edward Johnson--he
kept us all busy during that time disguising the craft, by painting the
hull and spars afresh, and such like; and the carpenter he was sent over
the starn on a stage to fix a plank over the name, on which he'd carved
a lot of flourishes and such like, and the word _Albatross_, which was
what Johnson had re-christened her, and by the time we'd finished, her
own builder wouldn't have knowed h