Only one thing that was worthy of note occurred during the day. The _Sumter_ steamed slowly along the coast, making not more than five knots an hour, and the Yankee sailors, enraged over the loss of their vessel, and looking forward to nothing else but a long term of confinement in a Southern prison, were very uneasy, and naturally enough they wanted to exchange opinions on the situation; but that was something the midshipman would not permit. He was vigilant, and would not allow the brig's crew to get together for fear that they might hatch up a plan for recapturing their property. If a couple of them got near enough together to whisper a few words to each other, he would call out roughly: "What are you about, there? Get farther apart, you two." This state of affairs continued until night came and darkness settled down over the Caribbean Sea, and then Captain Semmes himself did something that caused the heart of every one of the _Sabine's_ crew to beat high with hope. CHAPTER IX. THE "SUMTER" LOSES A PRIZE. While the majority of the _Sabine's_ crew chafed and fretted like captive birds which beat their wings against the bars of their cage to no purpose, there were two who stood aloof from every one and from each other; who never spoke a word, but who nevertheless came to a perfect understanding through the interchange of frequent and expressive glances. They were the captain and Jack Gray. Each one knew as well as if the other had explained it to him, that both had resolved upon the same thing--that before the sun rose again the _Sabine_ must be taken out of the hands of the prize crew, and her course shaped toward a Northern port, no matter what the risk might be. "I knew, although I had no chance to speak to the old man about it, that our first hard work must be to disarm those five rebels," said Jack, in telling his story. "I knew it would be easy enough to do that if we all moved together, for there was but one native American in the prize crew--the midshipman--and he was a little whiffet to be strangled with a finger and thumb. Even the fact that we were in the middle of the tow, the _Sumter_ ahead and the _Herndon_ behind, wouldn't have made any difference to us if we had had control of the brig, because a few lusty blows with an axe would have severed the two hawsers and the darkness would have aided us in making our escape; but the trouble was, the elements were against us. The wind would not come up, and of course it would be of no use for us to take the brig unless we had a breeze to help us draw off."