Fortunately, however, they were not compelled to toil very long at this exhausting labour; for when we had progressed about a mile a few catspaws came stealing along the surface of the water from the westward, while a dark line gradually extended along the western horizon and advanced steadily in our direction, the catspaws meanwhile multiplying and spreading until, within a quarter of an hour of their first appearance, the sails of the strange ship were wrinkling and flapping to quite a pleasant little breeze. The moment that this happened the pirate schooner cast off and made sail with the rapidity and precision of a man-o'-war, thus demonstrating that she was manned by an exceptionally strong and efficient crew. As soon as she was clear of the ship she was brought to the wind, under an enormous spread of exquisitely cut canvas, and away she went, close-hauled on the port tack, heading to the northward at a pace which made us gape with astonishment; while the ship, with squared yards, gathered stern-way and first fell broadside-on to us, then gradually paid off until she was before the wind, when down she came driving toward us, yawing so broadly to port and starboard that it was easy to see she had nobody at her helm, which seemed to point pretty clearly toward the presumption of tragedy. A quarter of an hour later the catspaws were ruffling the surface of the water here and there all round us, and stirring our canvas at rapidly decreasing intervals, with the true breeze coming fast and close behind them; we, therefore, laid in our sweeps, put the helm up, trimmed our sheets on the port tack, took a long pull and a strong pull upon the halliards all round, and paid off just in time to receive the first of the true breeze into the hollows of our canvas, when, heeling over to the extent of a strake or so, away we too went, with a merry buzzing and seething of water under our bows and along our bends. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE WASP FIGHTS THE PIRATE SCHOONER. The pirate schooner--a craft of apparently two hundred tons or more, very long and low on the water, painted dead black, with immensely tall, wand-like masts, and an enormous spread of canvas--was now slipping along fast through the water, heading to the northward, and some six miles dead to windward of us. It was a long start, and I foresaw that, fast as the little _Wasp_ undoubtedly was, unless something quite unforeseen occurred, a good many things might happen before we could get alongside the enemy. Why such a big powerful vessel--she showed seven ports of a side, and there was something suspiciously like a long 32-pounder on her forecastle--should turn tail so ignominiously and run from a little shrimp of a craft like the _Wasp_ I could not imagine, though I was to receive enlightenment upon that point before long. Our immediate business, however, was not with her, but with the big ship that was coming yawing down the wind toward us.