Ere they had accomplished a third of the distance, the ship was seen to square away her yards, and commenced moving through the water to meet them; the wind had sprung up again, but coming out from the south’ard, it brought the ship to windward, instead of to leeward, as she had been before the calm, and feeling its effects first, she was gathering way before the schooner felt it; soon however it reached the slaver, and with her sheets eased off, the Maraposa commenced merrily to continue her course. Willis had only four men killed in the late action, and with his feelings elated at the severe repulse he had given the men-of-wars-men, whom he cordially hated for their incessant persecution of the slavers, and whose boasted philanthropy, the motive which they pretend actuates them, he was aware was only practiced for the effect it had upon the world, and not for any benefit the Africans derived; for he knew that the condition of the recaptured negroes, as English apprentices, was infinitely worse than as Spanish slaves; for in the one case they had all the horrors of slavery without the name or benefits, in the other the name without the horrors. He was congratulating himself on his good fortune, and the prospect of making a safe and profitable voyage, when the current of his thoughts were changed by the appearance of a sail on his weather bow. The sloop lost time by heaving-to, to get in her boats, and was about ten miles astern; and the strange sail was some six miles ahead, standing to the northward and eastward, a course that would bring her exactly across the schooner’s track. “Take the glass, Mateo,” said Willis, “and jump up on the fore-topsail yard, and see if you can make out that chap ahead; he may be only some merchantman after all.” Mateo took the glass, and rapidly going aloft, sung out in a voice of surprise—“Soul of my mother! if it is not our old friend the Scorpion! who must have a new captain, for you left the other past service!” Willis was at a loss how to act. If he kept on he would meet the Scorpion, and the sloop behind would soon be up, and then he would have them both on him, and the brig alone was more than a match for the Maraposa; eat them out of the wind he could not, for they were both to windward of him; to bear away dead before it was only the same thing as keeping on, for both vessels, spreading a great deal more canvas, would have outsailed him, going with the wind over the tafferel. “Well, Mateo, what do you think of the prospect?” asked Willis of his mate, as he joined him on deck. “Pretty squally, sir! we can’t run either way!” “No! but we can keep on and fight!” “Yes, sir! but if the brig wings us, and we can hardly expect to get off again with sound spars, we will only fall into the clutches of the sloop, even if we whip the brig.”