"Sail, ho!" shouted Mark, from the fore rigging.
"Where away?" demanded the captain, without removing the glass from his eye.
"Just in the moon's wake, three points off the weather quarter."
"I see it. 'Tis the same, my lord. I was sure he would not take his eye off of us. Edwards, see all clear for action. Station all the men you can spare from working ship at the guns, and select twenty of the best for boarders. Be prompt. Keep away a point, helmsman. Aloft there! Get through with your duty and come down. I give you command of the lee battery, sir," he said to Mark. "Cheerily, men, all! Prepare for battle with merry hearts, that's my maxim, my lord," he added, turning round to the nobleman.
"How do you make her out now, Kenard?" asked the earl, who had heard the announcement of the stranger's vicinage with a pang of anxious solicitude for the safety of Grace; "I am unable to hold my glass steadily with this pitching of the ship."
"She is walking this way with a nimble foot," replied the captain, who, after giving his brief and rapid orders, once more turned to observe the motions of the strange sail. "She is a three-masted lugger—with her three huge topsails spread without a reef, ploughing her way towards us, and sending a cloud of spray to her masthead."
"Is she heavily armed?"
"I cannot see; but above her bulwarks is something like a mass of human heads."
"How far off is she?"