Our first anxiety, of course, was to ascertain whether we were gaining upon the chase, or whether she was maintaining her distance from us; as soon, therefore, as we had secured our morning altitude of the sun for the determination of the longitude, we measured as accurately as we could the angle subtended by that portion of the barque’s main-mast which showed above the horizon. The task was one of very considerable difficulty owing to the violent motion of the two craft, and when we had done our best we were by no means satisfied with the result, but we thought it might possibly be some help to us; so when we had at length agreed upon the actual value of the angle, we clamped our instruments, and, taking them below, stowed them carefully away in our bunks, where there was not much danger of their coming to harm through the frantic plunging of the schooner, our purpose of course being to compare the angle then obtained with another to be measured an hour or two later. If the second angle should prove to be greater than the first, it would show that we had gained on the chase; if, on the contrary, it should prove to be less, it would show that the chase had increased her distance from us. It was shortly before noon when we again brought our sextants on deck, opinion being meanwhile strongly divided as to whether or not we were gaining; some asserting positively that we were, while others as stoutly maintained that we were not. But even our sextants failed to settle the question, for if there was any difference at all in the angle, it was too minute for detection, and we were left in almost the same state of suspense as before. The only relief afforded us was the assurance that we were practically holding our own with the barque, and that unless the weather grew still worse than it was, we stood a fairly good chance of catching her eventually. One thing was certain; light as our draught of water was, and small as was the schooner’s area of lateral resistance compared with that of the barque, we were slowly but certainly eating our way out upon her weather quarter, her main and foremasts having been visible to leeward of her mizenmast when the chase commenced, while now they just showed clear of each other to windward, thus conclusively demonstrating that we were gaining the weather-gauge of her, despite the heavy sea. This was certainly a most comforting reflection, and greatly helped to console us for the otherwise slow progress that we were making in the chase. Ryan seemed to be the most disappointed man among us all; he was very impetuous and hot-headed; he liked to do everything on the instant and with a rush; and upon the discovery that we were not gaining perceptibly, he muttered something about giving the schooner more canvas. Luckily, before giving the order he paused long enough to allow the fact to be borne in upon him that the masts were already whipping and bending like fishing-rods, and the gear taxed to its utmost capacity of resistance; and being, despite the characteristics above-mentioned, a reasonably prudent and careful officer, the sight restrained him, and he forbore to attempt anything so risky as the further over-driving of the already greatly over-driven craft.
Not so with the skipper of the barque. It was, of course, impossible for us to know whether he had observed the capture of the Conquistador—we hoped and believed not; but, however that may have been, it was certain that he had been keeping his eyes sufficiently open to promptly become aware of the fact that the schooner had altered her course and was standing after him under a very heavy press of sail, and if our surmises as to his character were anywhere near the truth, that circumstance alone would be quite sufficient to fully arouse his easily-awakened apprehensions and to urge him to keep us at arm’s-length at all risks. Be that as it may, we had just made it noon when the quarter-master called our attention to the fact that the barque’s people had loosed their main-topgallant-sail and were sheeting it home over the double-reefed topsail. It was an imprudent thing to do, however, for the sail had scarcely been set ten minutes when the topgallant-mast went over the side, snapped short off by the cap. Her skipper instantly availed himself of the pretext afforded by this accident to bear away three or four points while clearing the wreck, his object doubtless being to determine beyond all question whether we really were after him or not; and if this was his purpose, we did not leave him long in doubt upon the point, our own helm being put up the instant that we saw what he was about. Realising, by this move on our part, the true state of affairs, he now squared dead away before the wind, shook out all his reefs, and set his fore-topgallant-sail, as well as topmast and lower studding-sails. This was piling on the canvas with a vengeance, but Ryan was not the man to be bluffed by any such move as that; every glass we had was now levelled at the barque, and no sooner were her people seen in the rigging than away went our own, and so much smarter were our people than those belonging to the barque, that our own studding-sails were set and dragging like cart-horses while theirs were still being sent aloft. This experiment was tried for about half-an-hour, by which time it became evident that the schooner was fully as good off the wind as was the barque, if not a trifle better; she seemed to fairly fly, while at times, when the breeze happened to freshen a trifle, it really seemed as though she would be lifted out of the water altogether; and I am quite persuaded that but for the preventers we had rigged for the purpose of relieving the masts when she was rolling so heavily during the preceding calm—and which still remained aloft and were doing splendid service—we must have lost both our sticks and been reduced to a sheer hulk long before the half-hour had expired.
I have said that we were doing quite as well as, if not a trifle better than, the barque; for while we held our own with her, so that she was unable to appreciably alter her bearing from us, we were steadily edging up toward her, our gain in this respect being so great that ere the next manoeuvre was attempted we had risen her high enough to get a momentary glimpse of the whole length of her rail when she floated up on the crest of a sea. It was clear, therefore, that the barque had gained nothing by running off the wind; on the contrary, we had neared her fully a mile; her skipper, therefore, having given the unsuccessful experiment a fair trial, suddenly took in all his studding-sails again, reduced his canvas once more to a couple of reefs, and braced sharp up to the wind, as before. But here again we had the advantage of him through the superior smartness of our own crew, for he no sooner began to shorten sail than we did the same, handling our canvas so quickly that we were ready nearly five minutes before him, the result being that we had gained another half-mile upon him and had placed ourselves a good quarter of a mile upon his weather quarter by the time that he had sweated up his top sail-halliards. We now felt that, barring accidents, the barque was ours; she could escape us neither to leeward nor to windward. Instead, therefore, of continuing to jam the schooner as close into the wind’s eye as she would sail, with the object of weathering out on the barque, we pointed the little vixen’s jib-boom fair and square at the chase, checked the sheets and braces a few inches fore and aft, and put her along for all that she was worth.
It is astonishing to note the advantageous effect that is produced upon the sailing of a ship when it becomes possible to check the sheets and braces even a few paltry inches; it was distinctly noticeable in the case of the schooner; her movements were perceptibly freer and easier, she no longer drove her keen cut-water into the heart of the seas, receiving their blows upon the rounding of her weather bow with a force sufficient to shake her from stem to stern and almost to stop her way for an appreciable instant of time; she now slid smoothly up the breast of the wave, taking its stroke fairly in the wake of the fore-rigging, where it had little or no retarding effect upon her, surmounted its crest with a long, easy roll, and then sank with equal smoothness down into the trough, along which she sped lightly and swiftly as a petrel. It added a good half-a-knot to her speed.
It was soon apparent that even this comparatively trifling advantage on our part had not escaped the notice of our wary friend the skipper of the barque; it suggested to him yet one more experiment, and he was not slow to make it, keeping his ship away about a point and a half and checking his braces accordingly. This proved very much more satisfactory so far as he was concerned; for by four bells in the afternoon watch we had lost sight of the barque’s hull again, and it was unmistakably evident that she was increasing her distance from us. We held on, however, straight after her, as before; for although it was undeniable that she was now drawing away from us, it was but slowly; it would take her a good many hours to run us out of sight at that rate, and we felt pretty confident that when the weather moderated—which we hoped would be before long, as the glass indicated a slight rising tendency—we should have her at our mercy. Meanwhile, however, we felt that we must not count our chickens before they were hatched; for there would be nearly an hour and a half of darkness between sunset and moonrise, and in that time our crafty friend would be pretty certain to attempt some new trickery if there seemed a ghost of a chance of its proving successful.
Chapter Seven.
The Slaver’s Ruse.
The sun set that night in a broad bank of horizontal, mottled grey cloud, through which his beams darted in golden splendour at brief intervals for nearly half-an-hour after we had lost sight of the great luminary himself; and just about the time that the spars and canvas of the distant barque began to grow indistinct in the fast-gathering dusk of evening, there occurred a noticeable decrease in the strength of the wind, with every prospect of a tolerably fine night. Of course our glasses were never off the chase for more than five minutes at a time, but up to the moment when it became impossible to any longer distinguish the movements of those on board, no attempt to increase her spread of canvas had been observed. Whether by this apparent apathy her people hoped to lull us into a condition of equal carelessness, it is of course impossible for me to say; but, if so, they signally failed, for immediately that the barque’s outline faded into an indistinct blur in the growing darkness, we went to work and shook out a reef all round, never doubting but that they were at that moment doing precisely the same thing. And our supposition was most probably correct—Ryan, indeed, who had sent for his night-glass and brought it to bear upon her, declared that he could detect an increase in the area of her shadowy canvas—for even after we had made sail we could not perceive that we were in any wise decreasing the distance between the two vessels.