This pleasant incident did not in the least abate my anxiety to get once more within hailing distance of the Barnabys; but for a long time my efforts were entirely fruitless, and I had begun to think that the _Blue-eyed Maid_ had been permanently transferred to another and less vigilantly watched station, when a slight inkling of intelligence dispelled that fear. My plan was soon formed. I caused it to be carelessly given out on shore that the _Rose_ had sprung her bowsprit in the gale a day or two before, and was going the next afternoon into Portsmouth to get another. In pursuance of this intention, the _Rose_ soon after noon slipped her moorings, and sailed for that port; remained quietly there till about nine o'clock in the evening, and then came out under close-reefed storm canvas, for it was blowing great guns from the northward, and steered for the Southampton river. The night was as black as pitch; and but for the continuous and vivid flashes of lightning, no object more than a hundred yards distant from the vessel could have been discerned. We ran up abeam of Hythe without perceiving the object of our search, then tacked, stood across to the other side, and then retraced our course. We were within a short distance of Hamble River, when a prolonged flash threw a ghastly light upon the raging waters, and plainly revealed the _Blue-eyed Maid_, lying-to under the lee of the north shore, and it may be about half a mile ahead of us. Unfortunately she saw us at the same moment, and as soon as way could be got upon her she luffed sharply up, and a minute afterward was flying through the water in the hope of yet escaping her unexpected enemy. By edging away to leeward I contrived to cut her off effectually from running into the channel by the Needles passage; but nothing daunted, she held boldly on without attempting to reduce an inch of canvas, although, from the press she carried, fairly buried in the sea. Right in the course she was steering, the _Donegal_, a huge eighty-gun ship, was riding at anchor off Spithead. Old Barnaby, who, I could discern by his streaming white hairs, was at the helm, in his anxiety to keep as well to windward of us as possible, determined, I suppose, to pass as closely as he prudently could under the stern of the line-of-battle ship. Unfortunately, just as the little cutter was in the act of doing so, a furious blast of wind tore away her jib as if it had been cobweb; and, pressed by her large mainsail, the slight vessel flew up into the wind, meeting the _Donegal_ as the huge ship drove back from a strain which had brought her half way to her anchors. The crash was decisive, and caused the instant disappearance of the unfortunate smuggler. The cry of the drowning men, if they had time to utter one, was lost amid the raging of the tempest; and although we threw overboard every loose spar we could lay hands on, it was with scarcely the slightest hope that such aid could avail them in that wild sea.