“Give her a shot,” cried the captain, “and see if that will bring her to.”
The ball went richochetting over the waters, and passing through her main-sail, plunged into the water a short distance ahead. A moment after the red-cross of Britain shot up to the schooner’s gaff, where it glared, blood-red, in the brazen sky. But, instead of lying to, the chase steadily kept on her way.
“Another shot,” cried the captain; “and let us see this time if we can’t cripple her.”
The ball whistled sharply across the air, but fell short of its mark; and another, fired immediately after, shared the same fate. It was evident that we were scarcely within range. As every shot deadened our progress, the captain ordered the gunner to desist; and, in place of firing, directed the sails to be wet down. The enemy, with a truer perception of the character of the combat, had declined, from the first, to return our shots, but had turned all his energies to spreading what light sail he could, and throwing water on his canvas from an engine on board.
“A stern-chase is a long chase,” said the captain. “But there is no help for it. However, as the fellow is a schooner, and we are square-rigged, I do not despair of eventually overhauling him. I wonder whether he really is an Englishman; he looks more like a slaver to my eye.”
The chase was, indeed, one of the most beautiful craft I had ever seen. She was painted of a deep black, relieved only by a crimson streak in the line of her ports. The mould of her hull was clean and graceful; her bows were sharp as a knife; and her tall, whip-stalk masts, that rose to an immense height, raked backwards with an air at once saucy and beautiful. A high bulwark, with a monkey rail running aft, concealed her decks entirely; but the number of faces peering at us, and the row of ports, proved her to be no mere yacht, as otherwise might have been supposed.
“That craft,” I replied, “was never built in England. There’s not a naval architect in the whole three kingdoms—take my word for it—who could turn out such a beautiful model. I’d bet a month’s pay that good, solid Rappahanock timbers hold her together, and that there’s more than one shipwright in Baltimore has handled the adze upon her.”
“Then she must be a slaver.”
“I think not. And you will agree with me when you have reflected a moment. We are a week’s sail out of the track of such scoundrels. Besides that craft carries too many men for a slaver.”
“You are right,” answered the captain, after a moment’s thought. “But what can she be?”