For three hours the chase continued, and neither vessel seemed to gain on the other; but the breeze was now freshening, and the Semiramis at length began to diminish the distance between herself and the Brazilian. Right ahead, in the course they were pursuing, lay a point of land projecting far into the sea, and the chart showed a tremendous reef of rocks extending some three miles beyond it. It was certain that neither vessels could clear the reef, if they held the course they were then steering.
"Keep her a little more to windward," cried the captain. "We shall have her; she will be obliged to haul up in about an hour's time, and then she can't escape, as we shall be well to windward."
The hour went by; and still the schooner showed no signs of altering her course. The captain of the Semiramis again examined his charts; but the reef was clearly laid down, and it seemed utterly impossible that the schooner could weather it by the course she was then steering. Yet, either from ignorance of the danger, or from the determination to brave it, she tried; knowing that if she escaped it and cleared the point, she would have gained an immense advantage over her pursuers.
It would be impossible to describe the anxiety with which all on board the Semiramis now watched the little Brazilian. She was literally rushing into the jaws of destruction; and, as she rose over each successive wave, it seemed as if she must be dashed on the treacherous reef at the next dip. Still she stood bravely on; and, though doubtless the lips of those on board her might be quivering at that moment in the agony of suspense, the little craft looked so beautiful, and sailed so gayly, her white sails and slender spars flashing in the sunlight that even her pursuers mentally prayed for her safety, quite irrespective of the prize-money they would lose by her destruction on the rocks. Jack does not like to see a pretty craft run ashore, at any price.
They began almost to think the schooner "bore a charmed life;" for she seemed to be floating over the very reef itself, and the white foam of the breakers could be seen all round her.
"Blessed, if I don't think she's the Flying Dutchman," said one blue jacket to another.
"Gammon, Bill—ain't we round the Cape? and don't you know that's just where the Flying Dutchman never could get to?" replied his messmate.
The little schooner bounded onward merrily—suddenly she staggers, and every spar shivers.
"She has struck!" cried twenty voices at once.
Now she rises with a coming wave, and now she settles down again with a violence that brings her topmasts on the deck.