"I think," said I, "that she is an extra Indiaman, and if you mean to speak her, you had better put your head towards her under an easy sail; by which means you will be so near by sunset, that if she runs from you, you will be able, with your superior sailing, to keep sight of her all night."
"I guess you are not far wrong in that," said the captain.
"I guess he is directly in the face of the truth," said the chief mate, who had just returned from the main top, where he had spent the last quarter of an hour in the most intense and absorbed attention to the cut of the stranger's sails. "If e'er I saw wood and canvas put together before in the shape of a ship, that there is one of John Bull's bellowing calves of the ocean, and not less than a forty-four gunner."
"What say you to that, leftenant?" said the captain.
"Oh, as to that," said the mate, "it isn't very likely that he's going to tell us the truth."
"Because you would not have done it yourself in the same situation," said I.
"Just so," said the mate.
And in fact, I must own that I had no particular wish to cruise for some months in this vessel, and go back for water at Tristan d'Acunha I therefore did not use my very best optical skill when I gave my opinion; but as I saw the stranger was nearing us very fast, although we were steering the same way, I made my mind up that I should very soon be out of this vessel, and on my way to England, where all my happiness and prospects were centred.
The chief mate took one more look—the captain followed his example; they then looked at each other, and pronounced their cruise at an end.
"We are done, sir," said the mate; "and all owing to that d——d English renegado that you would enter on the books as one of the ship's company. But let's have him aft, and give him his discharge regularly."