I thought I heard a shout of derisive laughter in return. The next moment, as she came beam on, I distinctly made her out to be a Greek polacca-brig.
“The pirate—the pirate!” shouted all hands.
“We had a near chance of being run down by the rascal,” cried Porpoise; “but we must be after him as soon as we can let the ‘Zebra’ know in what direction to make chase.”
To do this we had to edge away to the southward, firing our guns to call the attention of the man-of-war brig. This was not so easy to do as might be supposed. We stood on and on, blazing away to no effect. We reached the track of the brig, but still we did not find her.
It was difficult to say what we should do next. Daylight came, and we had the satisfaction—a very poor one, thought I—of seeing her hull down to the eastward, while we had every reason to believe that the chase was merrily bowling away to the westward. There was no use going after the pirate brig by ourselves, so that all that we could do was to make sail in the hopes of catching up our friend.
Porpoise bit his nails with vexation. Hearty wanted to get the matter over to return to Malta.
It was noon before we came up with the “Zebra.” This we should not have done had she not hove-to for us. We then had to wait for the “Trident,” which appeared to the northward, standing towards us.
We were all so confident that the polacca-brig which passed us in the night was the pirate, that our naval friends were obliged to be convinced, so we all hove about, and stood back the way we had come in chase.
I think it better to make a long story short. We crowded every thing we could carry, and the little “Frolic” behaved beautifully alongside her big companions, shooting somewhat ahead of them in light winds, and keeping well up with them when there was a sea on.
We scarcely expected that the pirate would attempt to get through the Gut, and therefore we might hope to pick him up inside it. I could not help suspecting, however, that all the time Mr Sandgate was laughing at us in his sleeve, and that we should see no more of him. So it proved. Ten days were fruitlessly expended in the search, and at the end of that time we were all once more at anchor in Malta Harbour.