With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent

by G. A. Henty

The puff did not last long, dying away to nothing in a few minutes, and then the lugger lay immovable again. The men whistled, stamped the deck impatiently, and cast anxious glances back at the cutter.

"She is walking along fast," the skipper said, as he examined her through a glass. "She has got the wind steady, and must be slipping along at six knots an hour. This is hard luck on us. If we don't get the breeze soon, it will be a close thing of it."

Another quarter of an hour passed without a breath of wind ruffling the water. The cutter was fully two miles nearer to them than when she had first been seen, and was holding the wind steadily.

"Here it comes, lads," the skipper said cheerfully. "Another ten minutes, and we shall have our share."

The time seemed long, indeed, before the dark line on the water reached the lugger, and there was something like a cheer, from the crew, as the craft heeled slightly over, and then began to move through the water. It was the true breeze this time, and increased every moment in force, till the lugger was lying well over, with a white wave at her bow.

But the cutter had first gained by the freshening breeze, and James Walsham, looking back at her, judged that there were not more than four miles of water between the boats. The breeze was nearly due west, and, as the lugger was headed as close as she would lie to it, the cutter had hauled in her sheets and lay up on the same course, so that they were now sailing almost parallel to each other.

"If we could change places," the skipper said, "we should be safe. We can sail nearer the wind than she can, but she can edge away now, and has all the advantage of us."

James had already perceived this, and wondered that the lugger did not pay off before the wind, so as to make a stern chase of it.

"I want to get a few miles farther out," the skipper said. "Likely enough there is another cutter somewhere inshore. It is quite enough to have one of these fellows at one's heels."

Another half hour and the cutter, edging in, was little over three miles distant. Then the skipper gave the word, the helm was put down, the sheets slackened off, and, in a minute, the lugger was running dead before the wind with her sails boomed out, one on either side. The cutter followed her example, and hoisted a large square sail.