Byron.
In the last chapter but one, we left Willis on his way once more to the coast of Africa. We will now join him, as he is about starting back for Cuba, with a cargo of negroes, purchased with the money Don Manuel had sent him.
His crew being too small to do any thing more than navigate the schooner; and having been unable, on the coast, to increase their number, he had, prior to taking in his cargo, dismounted his guns, and stowed them, with their carriages, in the hold, under the ballast.
This change of weight he now found altered much and greatly retarded the schooner’s speed; but it was now too late to make any alterations; and it was with greater anxiety than he had ever felt on any former voyage that he looked out for men-of-war. He could neither fight, nor confidently trust to his vessel’s speed; and he was particularly anxious to get in safely with this, if he could land them, his last cargo of Africans.
The schooner was within ten days of making land, and had not seen a vessel. All hands were congratulating themselves on their good fortune, when, far astern, and to windward, a sail was discovered just on the verge of the horizon. It did not appear larger than a speck, and to any but most practiced eyes, would have been invisible. Had the Maraposa been in her usual trim, they never would have had a clearer view of the stranger; but now, to Willis’s mortification, the distant vessel gradually became visible; first the royals were seen, then her topgallant-sails, and in three hours they could even make out the head of her courses; enough to confirm the feet of her being a man-of-war, and she gaining rapidly on the schooner.
Though in consequence of the Maraposa’s being so much smaller, it was not probable that the stranger had yet observed her, but was only steering in the same direction. But Willis knew that if he had not yet been seen, if the distance was still lessened, he could not escape, and it behooved him to increase his speed by all means, and avoid being chased. Captured he had sworn never again to be, let the consequences be what they might.
How to accelerate the Maraposa’s way was a question of some difficulty. Already was every stitch of canvas that would draw, and some that did not, set; and there was nothing on deck he could throw over to lighten his vessel, except his anchor and cable; as the other had been left in the harbor at Havana, she had but one; the guns he could not get at, covered as they were by the ballast and provisions in the hold; and feeling uncertain how to act, he called his mate to him to get his opinion.
“Well, Mateo, this is the squalliest prospect we have ever had, and the first time we could neither fight or run. What do you think we had better do? That fellow astern will be down on us before night, unless we can get along faster.”
“Why, sir, the only way we can make the Butterfly fly faster, is by taking some of the load off of her; and there is only two ways we can do that—and it will have to be done quickly to be of any avail—for that chap astern is coming along as if he carried a tornado with him.”
“What can we start over to lighten her?” asked Willis.