"Because I think it ought to end thus: 'The victims of the press-gang strangled Willis a few days after,'"
"Aye, aye, but you do not know what a sailor is; our recruits had not been a fortnight at sea before they entirely forgot the trick I had played them."
Just as Willis concluded his narrative, the man at the mast-head called out, "Sail ho!"
"Where away?" bawled the captain.
"Right a-head," replied the voice.
The Hoboken had hitherto pursued her voyage uninterruptedly, and the Yankee captain now prepared to signalize himself by a capture.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A SEA FIGHT—ANOTHER IDEA OF THE PILOT'S—THE BOUDEUSE.
The captain of the Hoboken was rather pleased than otherwise when the look-out reported the strange sail to show English colors. He looked rather glum, however, half an hour afterwards, when the same voice bawled that she was a bull-dog looking craft, schooner-rigged, and pierced for sixteen guns. The Yankee had hoped to fall in with a fat West Indiaman, instead of which he had now to deal with a man-of-war, carrying, perhaps, a larger weight of metal than himself.