“Faith! and you’re right, Harry,” said my old messmate, as he shut the glass with a jerk, after having, in consequence of my last remark, taken a long look at the strange sail, “that’s no sleepy merchantman to windward. But we’ll swagger up to him, nevertheless; one doesn’t like to run away from the first ship he meets.” I could not help smiling when I thought of the excuses with which the lieutenant was endeavoring to justify to himself his contemplated attack on a craft that was not only more than twice our size, but apparently an armed cruizer, for I knew the case would have been the same if this had been the hundredth, instead of the first vessel he had met after assuming a separate command, as no man in the corvette had been more notorious for the recklessness with which he invited danger. Perhaps this was the fault of his character. I really believe that he would, if dared to it, have run into Portsmouth itself, and fired the British fleet at anchor. In our former days, when we had been fellow officers on board the Arrow, we had often differed on this trait in his character, and perhaps now he felt called on, from a consciousness of my opinion, to make some excuse to me for his disregard of prudence in approaching the stranger; for, as soon as the breeze had made, he had close-hauled the schooner, and, during the conversation I have recorded, we were dashing rapidly up towards the approaching ship. As we drew nearer to the stranger, my worst suspicions became realized. Her courses loomed up large and ominous, and directly her hammock nettings appeared, and then her ports opened to our view, six on a side; while, almost instantaneously with our discovery of her force, a roll of bunting shot up to her gaff, and, unrolling, disclosed the cross of St. George. There was now no escape. The enemy had the weather gauge, and was almost within closing distance. However prudent a more wary approach might have been hitherto, there was no longer any reason for the exercise of caution. It would be impossible for us now to avoid a combat, or get to windward by any manœuvre; and to have attempted to escape by going off before the wind would have been madness, since of all points of sailing that was the worst for our little craft. Gloomy, therefore, as the prospect appeared for us, there was no hesitation, but each man, as the drum called us to quarters, hurried to his post with as much alacrity as if we were about to engage an inferior force, instead of one so overwhelmingly our superior.