"If we had a few guns, and were a little stronger-handed," growled an old salt to the second-mate, as he hitched up his trousers and rolled over his quid, "I should think the hard one, aft, had been stripping for a fight; but as it is we have nothing to carry on the war with, unless we throw sea-biscuits into the enemy'!" "Stand by to _veer_!" called out the captain from the quarter-deck; or, as he pronounced it, "_ware_." The men sprang to the braces, and the bows of the ship fell off gradually, as the yards yielded slowly to the drag. In a minute the Montauk was rolling dead before it, and her broadside came sweeping up to the wind with the ship's head to the eastward. This new direction in the course had the double effect of hauling off the land, and of diverging at more than right angles from the line of sailing of the Foam, if that ship still continued in pursuit. The seamen nodded their heads at each other in approbation, for all now as well understood the meaning of the change as if it had been explained to them verbally. The revolution on deck produced as sudden a revolution below. The ship was no longer running easily on an even keel, but was pitching violently into a head-beating sea, and the wind, which a few minutes before, was scarcely felt to blow, was now whistling its hundred strains among the cordage. Some sought their berths, among whom were Mr. Sharp and Mr. Dodge; some hurried up the stairs to learn the reason, and all broke up their avocations for the night. Captain Truck had the usual number of questions to answer, which he did in the following succinct and graphic manner, a reply that we hope will prove as satisfactory to the reader, as it was made to be, perforce, satisfactory to the curious on board. "Had we stood on an hour longer, gentlemen, we should have been lost on the coast of Cornwall!" he said, pithily: "had we stopped where we were, the sloop-of-war would nave been down upon us in twenty minutes: by changing the course, in the way you have seen, he may get to leeward ward of us; if he find it out, he may change his own course, in the dark, being as likely to go wrong as to go right; or he may stand in, and set up the ribs of his majesty's ship Foam to dry among the rocks of the Lizard, where I hope all her people will get safely ashore, dry shod." After waiting the result anxiously for an hour, the passengers retired to their rooms one by one; but Captain Truck did not quit the deck until the middle watch was set. Paul Blunt heard him enter his state-room, which was next to his own, and putting out his head, he inquired the news above. The worthy master had discovered something about this young man which created a respect for his nautical information, for he never misapplied a term, and he invariably answered all his questions promptly, and with respect.