“Just as one might expect, Mr. Mulford,” cried the captain, lowering his glass, and looking aloft to see what could be done to help his craft along; “a bloody revenue cutter, as I’m a wicked sinner! There she lies, sir, within musket shot of the shore, hid behind the point, as it might be in waiting for us, with her head to the southward, her helm hard down, topsail aback, and foresail brailed; as wicked looking a thing as Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights ever ran from. My life on it, sir, she’s been put in that precise spot, in waiting, for the Molly to arrive. You see, as we stand on, it places her as handsomely to windward of us, as the heart of man could desire.” “It _is_ a revenue cutter, sir; now she’s out of the sun’s wake, that is plain enough. And that is her boat, which has been sent to the light to keep a lookout for us. Well, sir; she’s to windward, but we have every thing set for our course, and as we are fairly abeam, she must be a great traveler to overhaul us.” “I thought these bloody cutters were all down in the Gulf,” growled the captain, casting his eyes aloft, again, to see that every thing drew. “I’m sure the newspapers have mentioned as many as twenty that are down there, and here is one, lying behind Montauk, like a snake in the grass!” “At any rate, by the time he gets his boat up, we shall get the start of him—ay; there he fills and falls off, to go and meet her. He’ll soon be after us, Capt. Spike, at racing speed.” Every thing occurred as those two mariners had foreseen. The revenue cutter, one of the usual fore-topsail schooners that are employed in that service, up and down the coast, had no sooner hoisted up her boat, than she made sail, a little off the wind, on a line to close with the Swash. As for the brig, she had hauled up to an easy bowline, as she came round Montauk, and was now standing off south south-east, still having the wind at south-west. The weatherly position of the cutter enabled her to steer rather more than one point freer. At the commencement of this chase, the vessels were about a mile and a half apart, a distance too great to enable the cutter to render the light guns she carried available, and it was obvious from the first, that every thing depended on speed. And speed it was, truly; both vessels fairly flying; the Molly Swash having at last met with something very like her match. Half an hour satisfied both Spike and Mulford that, by giving the cutter the advantage of one point in a freer wind, that she would certainly get along side of them, and the alternative was to keep off. “A starn chase is a long chase, all the world over,” cried Spike—“edge away, sir; edge away, sir, and bring the cutter well on our quarter.”