Ludar ordered the maiden to her quarters and me to my cabin.
“In this calm,” said he, “’twill be hours before we foregather if foregather we may. So below, while the poet and I whistle for a breeze.”
Towards afternoon we lay much as we were, drifting a little westward. But then came some clouds up from the south-east and with them a puff into our canvas.
“We may be glad to take in a reef on her before daybreak, Captain,” said the seaman.
“Time, enough till then,” said Ludar. “Take all you can now.”
We had not long to wait before the Miséricorde had way on once more. Then Ludar called his crew to him and said:
“To-night, be yonder stranger who she may, we run a race. Maiden, you have the keenest eyes; keep the watch forward. Humphrey, do you and the poet see to the guns and have all ready in case we need to show our teeth. Pilot, budge not one point out of the wind; but let her run. We may slip past in the dark, and then we are light-heeled enough to keep ahead. Old nurse, I warrant you have loaded a piece before now—we may need you to do it again. Meanwhile, to bed with you.”
Then the race began. The wind behind us freshened fast, so that in an hour’s time our timbers were creaking under stress of canvas. Before that, the stranger ship, though still a league and a half to larboard, had caught the breeze and was going too, canvas crowded, with her nose a point out of the wind into our course. For a long while it seemed as if we were never to come nearer, so anxious was she to give us no more advantage than she could help. But towards sundown we may have been a league asunder running neck and neck.
“She’s an English cruiser, Captain,” cried the helmsman, “and takes us for a Spaniard—that’s flat.”
“Then run as if we were so,” said Ludar. “Budge not an inch from your course even if we scrape her bows as we pass.”