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The brig gathering way steered a little to the northward so as to intercept the prahus. We were thankful for the breeze, but we would rather have avoided a struggle. "You'll have the studding-sails set, sir?" said Uncle Jack, scarcely waiting for an answer before he gave the order, and sprang forward to assist in carrying it out.
The studding-sails were accordingly taken in, and the ship brought to the wind on the starboard tack. We made short reaches, tacking every hour, and had gone about for the third time when, just as the men were coiling up the ropes fore and aft, the look-out reported: "Sail, ho! straight ahead. Hard up, sir, or you will be into her."
And before the northmen had her, and she was English, trim, and flew skysails and studding-sails, and carried lady passengers, who were the Poplar boys that laughed and yarned here? She was more mine than Yeo's. Let him claim her timber. All the rich freight of her past was mine. I was the intimate of every ghost she had. We sat in a cabin which had been her skipper's.
The substitution of the spinnaker for the jib and foresail made a very great difference in our rate of sailing. When I first came on deck I noticed some distance astern a splendid clipper-ship, bowling along with every stitch of canvas set that would draw, up to skysails and royal studding-sails.
As all was ready, in half an hour the Montauk was standing off the land under her three topsails, the reef now distant nearly a league. The courses came next, when the top-gallant yards were crossed and the sails set; the lighter canvas followed, and some time before the sun disappeared, the ship was under studding-sails, standing to the westward, before the trades.
The Wolf was carrying all the canvas which could be packed on her, studding-sails on either side and royals aloft. The chase also, under all sail, was still doing her utmost to keep ahead, but the Wolf, being the fastest ship of the two, gained rapidly on her.
If Her Majesty, God bless her! should be ever persuaded to do so silly a thing as to give old Tom Trysail a ship, and the said ship lay, just here-a-way, where the Coquette is now getting along so cleverly, why then, as in duty bound, I know very well what her commander would do " "Which would be ?" "To, in all studding-sails, and bring the vessel on the wind."
It was clear, therefore, that the barque had gained nothing by running off the wind; on the contrary, we had neared her fully a mile; her skipper, therefore, having given the unsuccessful experiment a fair trial, suddenly took in all his studding-sails again, reduced his canvas once more to a couple of reefs, and braced sharp up to the wind, as before.
A sailor told me that on a passage from Gibraltar to Boston, his vessel neared the Gulf Stream with a light breeze, clear sky, and studding-sails out, alow and aloft; while, before it, was a long line of heavy, black clouds, lying like a bank upon the water, and a vessel coming out of it, under double-reefed topsails, and with royal yards sent down.
Her top- sails were visible above the horizon. Her progress was very slow, for there was only very little wind. Her studding-sails were all set to catch the breeze, and her course was such that she came gradually nearer. Whether she would come near enough to see the island was another question.
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