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Just as I got a view of this calamity, I caught a glimpse of the Black Prince, close-hauled, luffing up athwart the wake of her enemies, and manifestly menacing to get the wind. The Speedy followed with the accuracy of clock-work, having rather closed with her leader, instead of falling farther behind.
Donald put the helm down; the jib and mainsail were trimmed as flat as it was judicious to have them; and the Maud was close-hauled, standing up to the northward. The skipper was careful not to cramp her by laying too close to the wind. He was an experienced boatman, and he governed himself more by the feeling of the craft under him than by his sight.
The pressure of water upon the rudder had forced the helm hard down, however, causing the brig to box off; I had nothing to do, therefore, but to trim sail and steady the helm at the proper moment, when the vessel gathered headway and began to move quietly through the water on a southerly course, close-hauled on the larboard tack.
She was close-hauled on the larboard tack, steering east-southeast, and to a sailor's eye presented a certain indescribable something that gave her taut rig and saucy air a dash of mystery, which would have set him to speculating at once as to her character and the trade she followed.
'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. No, louder and nearer swells 'the voice of many waters, 'the countless laugh of ocean, like the mirth of ten thousand girls, before us, behind us, round us; and the oily swell darkens into crisp velvet-green, till the air strikes us, and heels us over; and leaping, plunging, thrashing our bows into the seas, we spring away close-hauled upon the ever-freshening breeze, while Claude is holding on by ropes and bulwarks, and some, whose sea-legs have not yet forgot their craft, are swinging like a pendulum as they pace the deck, enjoying, as the Norse vikings would have called it, 'the gallop of the flying sea-horse, and the shiver of her tawny wings.
At 10 a.m., by which time we had neared the chase to within a distance of six miles, the stranger hove about for the first time and stood to the southward and eastward, close-hauled on the larboard tack.
It was overhead at noon and useless as a guide. In the early morning and late afternoon, when it might have indicated east and west, its warmth was overcome by the coolness of the breeze. So they steered on blindly, close-hauled on the starboard tack, nearly as straight a course as though they were whole men.
It would have afforded us almost unmitigated satisfaction to have seen them continue the chase, for we now felt perfectly satisfied that in moderate weather we had the heels of the Albatross, both close-hauled and running free, and could we succeed in decoying them far enough to leeward to permit of the whaler making good his escape, I was willing to trust to the future for the means of ultimately shaking our vindictive pursuer off.
From thence I made her out to be a barque apparently close-hauled on the port tack; but of what nationality she might be we were yet too far distant from her to decide, though I thought from the cut of her sails that she was English.
For several hours the Selache stretched out close-hauled into what they supposed to be open water, and they certainly saw no ice. They hove her to, and when the wind fell light brought her round and crept back slowly upon the opposite tack. Wyllard had gone to sleep after his day of anxious work, and daylight was just breaking when he next went out on deck.
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