In a minute the guns of the lugger spoke out again but, although a few ropes were cut away, and some more holes made in the sails, no serious damage was inflicted and, before they were again loaded, the spanker was rehoisted. The lugger continued to fire, but the brig was now leaving her fast. As soon as the sail was up, the pivot gun was again set to work; and the lugger was hulled several times but, seeing that her chance of disabling the brig was small, she was again brought before the wind. In half an hour a new topsail yard was ready, and that sail was again hoisted. The Antelope had now got three miles away from the lugger. As the sail sheeted home, the second mate shouted, from aloft: "There is a sail on the weather bow, sir! She is close hauled, and sailing across our head." "I see her," the captain replied. "We ought to have noticed her before, Mr. Probert. We have all been so busy that we haven't been keeping a lookout. "What do you make her to be, Joe?" he said to the second mate. "I should say she was a French frigate, sir." The captain ascended the shrouds with his glass, remained there two or three minutes watching the ship, and then returned to the deck. "She is a frigate, certainly, Mr. Probert, and by the cut of her sails I should say a Frenchman. We are in an awkward fix. She has got the weather gage of us. Do you think, if we put up helm and ran due north, we should come out ahead of her?" The mate shook his head. "Not if the wind freshens, sir, as I think it will. I should say we had best haul our wind, and make for one of the Spanish ports. We might get into Santander." "Yes, that would be our best chance. "All hands 'bout ship!" The vessel's head was brought up into the wind, and payed off on the other tack, heading south--the frigate being, now, on her weather quarter. This course took the brig within a mile and a half of the lugger, which fired a few harmless shots at her. When she had passed beyond the range of her guns, she shaped her course southeast by east for Santander, the frigate being now dead astern. The men were then piped to dinner. "Is she likely to catch us, sir?" Bob asked, as they sat down to table. "I hope not, lad. I don't think she will, unless the wind freshens a good deal. If it did, she would come up hand over hand. "I take it she is twelve miles off, now. It is four bells, and she has only got five hours' daylight, at most. However fast she is, she ought not to gain a knot and a half an hour, in this breeze and, if we are five or six miles ahead when it gets dark, we can change our course. There is no moon." They were not long below. "The lugger is under sail again, sir," the second mate, who was on duty, said as they gained the deck. "They haven't been long getting up a jury mast," Captain Lockett said. "That is the best of a lug rig. Still, they have a smart crew on board." He directed his glass towards the lugger, which was some five miles away.