We were worried about having fair company aboard. There might be rough work that would not be good for the eyes of woman. And then a woman needs attention. She must be treated with care and consideration. Suppose this new and undesired captive should start to complain. Women like to complain. Suppose she should grow angry at being kept a prisoner. What could we do? You couldn't put her in the brig. "Well, Leudemann," said I, "the only thing we can do is to treat her so well that she will be happy all the time." "I treated a dame well once," growled Leudemann, "and then she ran off with another man the first time I left her alone." The skipper's bride turned out to be the best fellow you could want. She had one of those sunny temperaments that simply spread mirth and good cheer everywhere. She had a smile for everyone and in every circumstance. She took her stay aboard the _Seeadler_ as an unexpected, exciting, and appropriate phase of her honeymoon, and resolved to get the greatest possible fun out of it. We all made much of her, did everything to make her comfortable, gave her presents, and got up amusements for her. Her husband was a little annoyed with her at first for having caused the loss of his ship, but he could not stay angry with her for long, and when he saw what a reigning queen aboard she was, he became very proud of her--and seldom left her side. When she got back to Canada, she gave the newspapers long stories about her stay on our terrible pirate raider, the _Seeadler_, and told what a delightful time the freebooters had shown her. When I returned to Germany after the war, I found an envelope full of clippings from her awaiting me. We lay in the waters off Africa five degrees above the equator and thirty degrees west longitude. That region is right on the path of all sailing ships that run before the southeast trade winds and head north. The weather is seldom bad there, the air is clear, and from our masthead we had a range of vision of thirty miles. A Frenchman, no doubt of it. The ship was scrupulously clean, her rigging trim and neat. Her hull was decorated artistically with gunports, after the manner of an old-time war frigate. Only the French keep their ships so thoroughly shined up, and there was one firm of French shipping owners whose custom it was to decorate their vessels man-o'-war fashion. She was the four-masted brig _Antonin_. We came up behind her diagonally, and then after her. Our motor was having one of its off days, but we did not care. What's the matter with canvas? The _Seeadler_ was one of the fastest clippers ever turned out by an American shipyard, and there was nothing I liked better than a race under sail. We'd see if this Frenchman could outsail us. Fine chance he had. But if he did not exactly outsail us, he sailed with us. We could not gain on him. That bark was fast, and so we went on, mile after mile, quite evenly.