“She does not answer our signals,” observed the captain: “I suspect by that and her present manoeuvre she must be an enemy.”
“I have no doubt of it, sir,” observed the first lieutenant; “an English frigate would not behave in that way.”
“Open the ports and get up the fighting lanterns, then,” said the captain; for, up to the present, we had been careful not to show any lights.
It was now plain to see that her men were at their quarters and that she was prepared for action. When everything was ready on deck, the royals and flying-jib were set, and we gave chase. The strange vessel was about three-quarters of a mile on our weather-beam; in half an hour we had gained upon her considerably, and our sailing was so superior that we were satisfied, should she prove an enemy, that in an hour more we should be engaged.
Of course, we might have engaged her at the distance we were from her, but you cannot be too careful in a night action, and ought never to engage without first hailing the vessel to make sure that she is an enemy, as circumstances may, and have occurred by which an English vessel may not be able to answer the private signal, and, of course, a vessel belonging to a neutral power would be in the same position.
The incertitude which existed as to whether the strange vessel was an enemy or not created great excitement. My duty, as signal midshipman, placed me abaft on the quarter-deck, and Bob Cross, who was really a quarter-master, although doing duty as captain’s coxswain, was at the wheel.
At last we had brought the chase well on our weather quarter, and when we tacked we found that we lay well up, she being about a point on our lee bow. Another half-hour brought us within two cables’ length of her, when we kept away, so as to pass her to leeward, close enough to have thrown a biscuit on board. The stranger still remaining on the opposite tack, Captain Delmar then hailed from the gangway—
“Ship, a-hoy!”
There was a death-like silence on board of both vessels, and his voice pierced sonorously through the night wind.
“Ah! yaw!” was the reply.