“Why, I suppose he’ll fetch the land one of these days, and then, if he can’t sail over it, like the Yankee flat-bottomed crafts, which draw so little water that they can go across the country, when the dew is on the grass in the morning, we shall come up with him,” replied Togle, with great gravity.
“I wonder you can joke about it, Togle,” said Duff. “For my part, I hate the sort of work, it makes one feel all nohow, and sadly injures the appetite; I could scarcely eat my dinner to-day.”
“One wouldn’t have supposed so by the manner you stowed away the grub,” answered Togle. “For my part, I don’t feel so anxious, because I’ve made up my mind that we shall catch her some time or other. Let’s see, it has just gone seven bells, so we’ve more than three hours of day-light, and much may happen in that time.”
The men were, meantime, discussing the subject of the chase in their own fashion; nor did the three warrant officers, Brown, Black, and White, fail to express their opinions on the matter.
“My opinion is,” said Mr Brown, “that them Grecian chaps know how to build crafts suited for going along in their own waters, as all must allow is the case in most parts; but just let us catch any one of them—that fellow ahead, for example—outside the straits, wouldn’t we just come alongside him in a quarter less time.”
“As it is, he’ll lead us a pretty chase, I fear,” observed Mr Black. “It will be like one I heard of in the war time, when a Jersey privateer chased a French schooner from off the Start right round the Cape, and never caught her till she ran into the Hoorly.”
“Ah! but there was a longer chase than that which I have heard talk of, when the Mary Dunn, of Dover, during the Dutch war, followed a Dutchman right round the world, and never caught her at all,” said Mr White, who piqued himself on being facetious. “Now, I’m thinking this present affair will be, somehow, like that, unless as how we manage to go faster than we now goes along, which ain’t very likely, or she goes slower, which she don’t seem to have a mind to do.”
During the day, Captain Fleetwood scarcely quitted the deck. Up and down he paced, with his glass under his arm, now and then stopping and taking an anxious look at the chase, again to continue his walk, or else he would stand loaning against the bulwarks for a length of time together, without moving, unconscious of its lapse; his thoughts evidently fixed on the vessel ahead, and penetrating, in fancy, her interior. Indeed, none of the officers remained below longer than was necessary to take their meals, and every glass was in requisition to watch the chase.
Towards the evening, the wind, although keeping steady in the same quarter, gave indications of falling light, and there seemed every probability of what most on board had prognosticated would not take place—a calm.
“The wind has dropped very much, sir,” said Mr Saltwell to the captain.