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CHAPTER 4.

THE CHASE.

Our frigate sails very fast; there are few ships in the service sail faster, and none in most respects to surpass her, or indeed, I really believe, to equal her. I do not know what she cannot do. The boatswain says, and I believe him, that she can do everything but talk. Still, somehow or other, that piccarooning-looking schooner managed to keep ahead of us, and after some time actually ran out of the range of our shot. She was undoubtedly one of the fastest vessels of her class ever built, or it would not have happened. The schooner made a number of short tacks right away in the wind’s eye. This would not have suited us, as we took longer to go about, so we had to stretch away to the eastward, while she, tacking once more, stood to the north-west. Sometimes we appeared to be a long way apart, then about we would go and be almost up with her again. What we had to fear was night coming on before we could get up to her, when very probably she would contrive to escape in the dark. Old Gregson watched her moodily. “Of course she will escape,” he observed. “She is probably full of slaves, and would prove a rich prize to us. We are not likely to have any luck; no ship has that I’m on board.” It seemed probable that in this case, at all events, he would be right. We were all so eager in watching the chase that none of us felt inclined to go below. The pangs of hunger at dinner-time, however, drove most of us there. We had not got half through the meal before Dickey Snookes made his appearance with the announcement that the schooner’s maintopmast had been carried away, and that we should be soon up to her. We all rushed on deck to find matters very much as they were when we went below, and on our return to the berth there was Master Dickey comfortably seated at table, helping himself to the best bits of the boiled beef and duff, and laughing at our simplicity, or, as he remarked, at our being so easily sold. He got a cobbing by the by, as a wind-up to his amusement, after dinner was over. It is an operation by no means over-pleasant to the person on whom it is inflicted. The weapon employed is a handkerchief with a corner knotted; or a stocking, with the end filled with socks, or something to make a hard knot. The patient is laid across the mess-table, and each member of the berth inflicts a blow on a part of his body, over which his clothes are tightly drawn. As the day drew on, the wind increased. Dickey Snookes having been properly cobbed, we all hurried on deck. As we looked through our glasses, we saw that the schooner was staggering along under as much canvas as she could carry; while the frigate glided on with becoming dignity, we having decidedly the advantage in a strong wind. I asked Sommers what he thought about the matter. “We are coming up with her, lad, hand over hand, and if the wind holds she will be under our guns before nightfall,” he answered. As you may suppose, I was highly delighted with the thoughts of this, and hoped that I might be sent on board with the prize crew. Still the schooner held on her course, and her determined attempts to escape convinced us more and more that she had good reason for so doing. The evening was now drawing on. We had gained on her very considerably, but still she was sufficiently ahead, should the night prove dark, to escape us. The very idea that she would do so was provoking. Some did not seem to care so much about it as others. Dickey made a joke of the matter, and said how foolish we should all look in the morning when the schooner was nowhere; and Polly was provokingly indifferent. The sun went down, and darkness came on, and very dark it was; and though I looked and looked I could not see the chase, but there were many on board who could, and we began firing away, the flashes of the guns looking very bright through the darkness. At last I saw the schooner’s dark hull and masts, like a shadow against the sky, and there then was a cry that her foretopmast was shot away, and our people gave a loud cheer. Directly after this the first lieutenant shouted that she had struck, and we ceased firing. Two boats were ordered away to take possession. The second lieutenant went in one, and Sommers had command of the other. I jumped into his boat, as if it were a matter of course; and away we pulled toward the schooner. “I guess that you have pretty considerably outmanoeuvred us, gentlemen, but still I don’t know, by what right you, or any other men alive, venture on board a free and independent merchantman of the United States of America,” said a man who met us at the gangway. “You come on board at your peril!”