catching to the shrouds, stays, and every portion of the hamper, ran swiftly across the ship, mounted up the rigging, and licking and wreathing around the spars, soon enveloped the chase in a pyramid of flame, which eddied in the breeze, and streamed like a signal banner far away to leeward. How wild and fantastic, like spirits dancing on the air, were the attitudes and shapes the fire assumed! Now the flames would blaze steadily up for a minute; now they would blow apart like whiffs of smoke; and now they would leap bodily away, in huge and riven masses, into the dense canopy of smoke to leeward. At times they would wind spirally around the hamper; again they would taper off far up into the unfathomable night. On every hand the waves had assumed the hue of fire. The heavens above were lurid. The crackling and hissing of the flames could be heard even at our distance from the brig. Millions of sparks, sent up from the blazing ship, whirled off on the wind, and showered down to leeward. Occasionally a stray spar fell simmering into the water. At length the brig fell off from her course, and drifting broadside on before the wind, came down towards us, rolling so frightfully as to jerk the flames, as it were, bodily out of her. I was still gazing spell-bound on the magnificent spectacle, when I heard an exclamation of surprise over my shoulder, and turning quickly around, I saw the skipper gazing intently over the burning ship, as if he watched for something hidden behind her. He saw my movement, and asked, “Do you not detect a sail to windward, just in the rear of the brig? Wait till the wind whirls away the fire—there!” There was no mistaking it. A large man-of-war, to judge by her size and rig, partially concealed by the brig, was coming down to us, with studding-sails all spread, and the English cross flying at her main. “We are already under a press of sail—as much as we can conveniently spread,” said the skipper, as if musingly, looking aloft; “and the Englishman will have to give the brig somewhat of a berth. Ah! there comes the enemy—a frigate, as I live!”