For some time, every eye was fastened upon the approaching sail, which, apparently unconscious of an enemy so near, kept blindly approaching us. At length her royals began to lift, her topsails followed rapidly, and directly the heads of her courses loomed up on the horizon. Every eye sparkled with the certainty of a rich prize.
“She’s a fat Indiaman, by St. George,” said our lieutenant, who had not yet so far forgot the country of his ancestors, as to swear by any saint but her patron one.
“I guess we’d better not be too sure,” said a cautious old quarter-master from Cape Cod, as he levelled a much worn spy-glass, and prepared to take a long squint at the stranger.
“By St. Pathrick,” said an Irish midshipman, in a whisper to one of his comrades, “but wont she make a beautiful prize—with the rale Jamaica, my boys, by the hogshead in her, and we nothing to do afther the capture, but to drink it up, to be shure.”
“The strange sail is a frigate,” said the look-out at the mast head, with startling earnestness.
“Too true, by G—d,” muttered the lieutenant, shutting his glass with a jerk; and as he spoke, the hull of the stranger loomed up above the horizon, presenting a row of yawning teeth that boded us little good, for we knew that our own little navy boasted no vessel with so large an armament.
“That fellow is an English frigate,” calmly said Paul Jones, closing his telescope leisurely, “we shall have to try our heels.”
Every thing that could draw was soon set, and we went off upon a wind, hoping to distance our pursuer by superior sailing. But though, for a while, we deluded ourselves with this hope, it soon became apparent that the enemy was rapidly gaining upon us, and with a heavy cross sea to contend against, we found ourselves, in less than four hours, within musket shot of the frigate, upon her weather bow. During all this time the Englishman had been firing her chase guns after us, but not one of them, as yet, had touched us. The game, however, was now apparently over. Every one gave themselves up as lost, to die, perhaps, the death of rebels. Resistance would only inflame our captors. How astonished then, were we all to hear the captain exclaim,—
“Beat to quarters!”
The high discipline of the crew brought every man to his post at the first tap of the drum, though not a countenance but exhibited amazement at the order.