Hull had kept his sails wet with hose and bucket, in order to hold the wind, and by ten o’clock his crew had started cheering and laughing, for they were slowly drawing ahead; the _Belvidera_ was directly in their wake, distant almost three miles. The other vessels were scattered to leeward, two frigates were on the lee quarter five miles away, and the _Africa_, holding the opposite tack, was hull down on the horizon. The latitude was made out at midday to be 38° 47´ north, and the longitude, by dead reckoning, 73° 57´ west. The wind freshened in the early afternoon, and, the sails being trimmed and watched closely, Hull’s claim that his old ship was a stepper, if put to it, was verified, for she gained two miles and more upon the pursuers. And now strategy was to come into play. Dark, angry-looking clouds and deeper shadows on the water to windward showed that a sudden squall was approaching. It was plain that rain was falling and would reach the American frigate first. The topmen were hurried aloft, the sheets and tacks and clew-lines manned, and the _Constitution_ held on with all sails set, but with everything ready at the command to be let go. As the rush of wind and rain approached all the light canvas was furled, a reef taken in the mizzen-topsail, and the ship was brought under short sail, as if she expected to be laid on her beam ends. The English vessels astern observed this, and probably expected that a hard blow was going to follow, for they let go and hauled down as they were, without waiting for the wind to reach them. Some of them hove to and began to reef, and they scattered in different directions, as if for safety. But no sooner had the rain shrouded the _Constitution_ than Hull sheeted home, hoisted his fore and main topgallant-sails, and, with the wind boiling the water all about him, he roared away over the sea at a gait of eleven knots. For an hour the breeze held strong--blowing almost half a gale, in fact--and then it disappeared to leeward. A Yankee cheer broke out in which the officers joined, for the English fleet was far down the wind, and the _Africa_ was barely visible. A few minutes’ more sailing, and the leading frigates were hull below the horizon. Still they held in chase throughout all the night, signalling each other now and then. At daybreak all fear was over; but the _Constitution_ kept all sail, even after Broke’s squadron gave up and hauled to the northward and eastward. The small brig that had been counted in the fleet of the pursuers was the _Nautilus_, which had been captured by the English three or four days previously. She was the first vessel lost on either side during the war. She was renowned as having been the vessel commanded by the gallant Somers, who lost his life in the harbor of Tripoli.