The morning wore away. At noon the schooner was showing to the height of her covering board, that is to say, she had risen her bulwarks above the line of the horizon, but the refraction was troublesome; she swam in the lenses of the telescope, she was blurred as though pierced with fragments of looking-glass along the risen black length of her, and sometimes I seemed to see gun-ports, and sometimes I believed them an illusion of the atmosphere. “What do you think of her, Fielding?” said Greaves, while we stood at noon, quadrants in hand, taking the altitude of the sun. “I don’t like her looks, sir,” I answered. “Nor I. I believe now that she is a large Spanish schooner with hatches ready at a call to vomit cut-throats in scores. We’ll test her.” A light breeze was then blowing off the starboard quarter. Our helm was shifted, the yards braced to the air of wind, and the brig was headed about west. We made eight bells, and grasped our quadrants, waiting and watching. For about ten minutes the schooner, that was now dead astern, held steadily on; her broad spaces of canvas then came rounding and fining down into a thin silver stroke, somewhat aslant. Greaves picked up the glass and leveled it at her. “She is after us,” he exclaimed, “and, blank her, it won’t be dark for another seven hours!” “She may yet prove an English man-of-war,” said I. “I wish I could believe it now,” said he; “we must make a stern chase of it. Our heels are as smart as hers, I dare say, and this is good weather for dodging until the blackness comes, unless the beast should send boats, in which case there are thirteen of us; mostly Englishmen.” He went below to work out the sights, leaving me to put our brig into a posture of defense, and to make the most of the weak catspaws which breathed and died. Ammunition was got up, the two long brass guns loaded with round shot, the carronades with grape to slap at the first boat that should come within range. In a very little while our decks presented a somewhat formidable appearance with chests of muskets and pistols loaded with ball and slugs, round and grape shot ready for handling, a cask full of cartridges, a sheaf of boarding-pikes, cutlasses at hand to snatch, and so on, and so on.