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“Why, smother me, if she’s not got the scent of us!” suddenly cried Mr. Whitear with the glass at his eye; “she’s off three points, and there’s no luff left in her! Boys, did any of you take notice if she had her stun-sail booms aloft?”

“No,” answered William Dart; “her foreyards were just up yonder” (pointing into the air), “an’ I’ll take my oath she’d got no booms on ’em.”

“Then we’ll run her down yet: we’ll have her!” cried Mr. Whitear, fetching his knee a slap that sounded like the report of a pistol. “Keep her away a bit; ease off the sheets fore and aft. Hurrah, my lads! the Jehu knows the road! We’ll weather the sneak, boys!” And so he rattled on, sometimes talking to his men, sometimes to the schooner, and sometimes addressing the barque ahead.

Shortly after two o’clock in the morning, however, four or five sailing-vessels hove in sight and bothered Mr. Whitear exceedingly, for there was a chance mistaking the chase among them and pursuing the wrong vessel. All hands were implored to keep a bright look-out, and the glass was now much more often at the skipper’s eye than under his arm. It is strange enough to think of a little collier with 230 tons of coal in her bottom pursuing a vessel three times her size. It might really pass as a most satirical travestie of the old maritime business, were it not for the very strong commercial instincts at work in it. The purse was always as great a power on sea as on land, and the flight of the big barque from the little coalman was only another illustration of its supremacy.