The stranger gained rapidly on the brig, and as she was pronounced to be a large ship, then a man-of-war from the squareness of her yards, and at length a frigate—
“Could she be the ‘Imperious?’” Edda ventured to ask.
The old captain shook his head.
“No, my dear young lady,” he answered gravely; “it goes to my heart to alarm you, but the truth must be spoken. I am very much afraid that the stranger is an enemy.”
Edda’s heart sunk within her. English prisoners, she knew, whether combatants or not, were detained in France for years, and the Emperor had shown his intention of keeping them till he had attained the objects he sought.
Mrs Armytage fainted when she heard the report, and the colonel came on deck to ascertain its truth. He evidently did not like the look of things.
“Cannot you make this craft of yours sail faster?” he asked, in an angry tone of the master.
“It is the people who built her, sir, are to blame, not me. I am doing, and will do, all a seaman can accomplish to escape the enemy; I have no wish to be taken. I have a wife and family waiting my return home, and Heaven have mercy on them! we shall be utterly ruined if the brig is taken.”
Colonel Armytage was silent; the chances of escape seemed small indeed. Still pressed as she was with a far larger amount of canvas than the master would have ventured to carry under ordinary circumstances, the brig tore through the rising seas at a greater rate than had ever before probably been got out of her.
The master stood watching the masts and spars with an anxious eye. They bent and cracked with the greatly increased strain to which they were exposed; the weather-shrouds and stays were tautened to the utmost. At length the master turned round to Edda and Mrs Armytage, who, having recovered from her first alarm, had come up on deck.