Captain Jem then hailed me eagerly from the deck, asking whether she looked like a merchant ship or a frigate. At first, I could give little satisfaction to his questions, as the stranger was coming directly towards us; but presently, whether from bad steering or not I am unaware, she gave a sheer to starboard, and lifting that moment upon a swell, I saw that she carried a great broadside of heavy guns, with a very high poop, rising I am sure forty feet above the water, and all encrusted, as it were, with galleries and carved windows, after the fashion in which the Spaniards build their men-of-war. Upon this intelligence, we prepared for immediate flight. We were to leeward, and so had nothing for it but to run before the wind. As yet, however, only those little puffs or airs called by sailors cat’s-paws, the precursors of the coming wind, were stealing over the great shiny backs of the smooth lazy swells, whereas the Spanish frigate, for such we doubted her not to be, was in the midst of roughened water, and rolling two great ridges of white foam, from beneath her bows. How we cursed the chance which condemned us to lie idle on the ocean, when a formidable enemy was swooping down upon us, with a wind which made his heaviest canvas surge, and his stout masts bend and creak. Meantime, however, we prepared to set studding-sails, and indeed hoisted them to be ready for the first of the coming breeze, at the same time, by the help of a sweep or great oar swinging round the head of the schooner in the direction which circumstances compelled us to take. This manœuvre was instantly observed on board the great ship, for she straightway fired a cannon, and hauled up the gorgeous ensign of Spain to her main-topmast head, where it streamed forth in all its red and yellow glory. The next moment a bright spout of flame flashed from the Spaniard’s bows, and the ball came skipping along the sea, making its last plunge not a quarter of a mile from us. But almost at the same moment our sails flapped and surged, then steadily swelling out, the schooner began to slip through the water. Seeing this, the Spaniards fired again and again; but without effect. Meantime, we were hard at work, setting every stitch of canvas we could get to draw, and presently we had quite enough of wind for the safety of our spars, the breeze driving before it that heavy pelting shower, which often falls soon after sunrise, and which sailors call the Pride of the Morning. The ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp’ was now careering along at her full speed, rolling heavily before the great following surges, which would often rise in white foam, hissing and glancing round her stern, and then melting, as it were, from beneath her, would sweep on, while the schooner plunged heavily down into the trough, her sails flapping like thunder in the lull, and then tearing and struggling, as though they would drag the masts out of the keel as the vessel was hove high again on the crest of the next following wave.