ion of her crew.

By the time that she had run another mile, we saw the whaler's main-yard
once more thrown aback; an indication that she was about to pick up her
other two boats; and there now appeared to be a strong probability that
she would have time to hoist them in and be off again, before the pirate
could approach her within gun-shot.

The situation became eminently exciting; and so anxious was I that the
whaler should have every chance of making her escape, that I directed
Bob to let go our spinnaker out-haul, and allow the traveller to run in
along the boom, in the hope that, by leading the pirates to believe it
had become necessary for us to shorten sail, they might be tempted,
after all, to keep on in chase of us, instead of interfering with the
barque.

It would have afforded us almost unmitigated satisfaction to have seen
them continue the chase, for we now felt perfectly satisfied that in
moderate weather we had the heels of the _Albatross_, both close-hauled
and running free, and could we succeed in decoying them far enough to
leeward to permit of the whaler making good his escape, I was willing to
trust to the future for the means of ultimately shaking our vindictive
pursuer off.

In further prosecution of this project, as soon as Bob had got the
spinnaker in, I lashed the tiller for a moment and jumped forward to
assist him in getting in our enormous balloon-topsail, which I foresaw
would have to be taken off the craft shortly if we wished to save the
topmast, the wind being rather on the increase and our rigging already
strained to the tension of harp-strings. This done, we found time to
take another look at the whaler.

His main-yard was just swinging as we turned our glances in his
direction, and then his bows fell off until he headed about north-west;
his men springing into the rigging and scurrying away aloft to loose
topgallant-sails, one hand meantime laying out on the jib-boom to loosen
the flying-jib.

Away went the jolly old craft in magnificent style, heading about north-
west, and evidently upon her best point of sailing. She crossed our
stern, shutting out the pirate-brig for a moment, and we fully expected
that when that craft next appeared we should see her hauled up in chase;
but nothing of the kind; on she came, still heading direct for us, and I
began to hope that our plan of luring her on to follow us was about to
prove; successful.

Two or three minutes, which seemed like