It was about sunset. The merchantman, having passed the protecting promontory, and swept around the tall ship of war, had gained an offing, about a half mile beyond, under the lee of a thickly-wooded, long, narrow island; and was now lying snugly at anchor, riding out the heavy ground-swell occasioned by the abated storm; while all on board, unsuspicious of molestation, were making preparations to turn in for the night. "A sail to the leeward!" shouted a sailor, just sent aloft to make some alteration in the rigging. The word was passed below; and the captain, mates, and Elwood, were instantly on deck, and on the lookout. They at once descried a large black schooner, creeping out from behind the farther end of the island against which they were anchored, about a mile distant, and tacking and beating her way towards them. She carried no colors by which her character could be determined; but the very absence of all such insignia, together with the sinister appearance of her long, low sides, which exhibited the aspect of masked port-holes, and also the peculiar stir of her evidently large and strange-looking crew, at once marked her as an object of suspicion. "Elwood, your fears were prophetic," said the captain, lowering his glass from a long, intent observation. "That craft is a pirate, with scarce a shadow of doubt. But don't the mad creature see the frigate, and the frigate her?" With this, they all turned towards the ship of war; but she was no longer visible. A narrow vein of land fog, put in motion by some local current in shore, had been wafted out on to the water, and completely enshrouded her from their view. "I see it all," exclaimed Elwood. "That pirate has been lying, all the afternoon, concealed behind this island; and his spies, sent into the woods on the island, and to this end of it, probably, saw both our ship and the frigate take their positions, and this intervening fog coming on, and reported all to their master; who at once conceived the bold design which he has now started out to execute,--that of snatching us, as its prize, from under the very guns of the frigate!"