By the time that she had got the reefs out of her immense mainsail, and had set an enormous gaff-topsail above it, we had drawn so far ahead of her as to bring her a couple of points upon our weather quarter, whereupon we tacked, the advantage gained being solely due, I imagined, to the slowness of her crew in making sail. When we were round, and full upon the other tack, she was still quite three miles distant, and bore about a point on our lee-bow; but of course she very soon drew out athwart our hawse, and now everything seemed to depend upon which was the more weatherly craft of the two. Seen from the fore-topmast crosstrees--to which I ascended for the purpose of getting a good look at her--she appeared to be one of those immensely beamy, shallow craft, copied from the slavers; and those vessels, I knew, although they generally sailed like witches, were often anything but weatherly. Yet I had heard of vessels thus modelled for the sake of securing speed, and fitted with a very deep keel to ensure weatherliness, where light draught of water was not a consideration; and it remained to be seen whether the brigantine was a craft of this class. Now that all her canvas was at length set, the heavy loss of men that she had sustained was no very serious disadvantage to her; for with one good man to steer her, she would sail as well with a dozen hands as with a hundred on deck, and there could be no doubt that she was going very fast through the water. The point now was whether, as we converged toward each other--as we were now doing, the two craft being on opposite tacks--we could persuade her, by means of our bow guns, to give in, and so save us the time that would be consumed in a long stern-chase. Mr Purvis, the gunner, believed that we could, and, having obtained permission from the Captain to try his hand, soon proved himself right by shooting away the chase's fore-topgallant-mast, when the loss of topgallantsail, royal, and flying-jib so far reduced her speed that it quickly became evident she must either strike or run the gauntlet of our entire broadside. She wisely chose the former alternative; and twenty minutes later she was hove-to, with her topsail aback, on the _Europa's_ lee quarter. CHAPTER EIGHT. THE AUDACIEUSE PRIVATEER. "Mr Delamere," said Captain Vavassour, "take a dozen men, and Mr Gascoigne, and secure possession of that brigantine, if you please. Stay a moment,"--as, touching my hat, I was about to dive below for my chest--"you had better have with you Simmons and Henderson, as two out of your dozen, to take charge of the watches, and take also two extra hands to bring back the boat. I will remain hove-to until you have secured your prisoners below--I have not time to tranship them now; and when you have done that you will be pleased to bear up and join the convoy. Now, be as quick as you can, young gentleman, for I am anxious to be off after that merchantman yonder."