"Well, captain, that looks like business, and so now I'll go on. The Frenchman is as large as you; may be," said he, looking round the deck, "he may be a bit larger, but you won't mind that, I suppose." "Did you leave her in port when you sailed?" "I reckon she was off two days before me." "And how many days is it since you sailed?" "Just four days, I calculate." "And did you hear where she was going to?" "Yes, I did, and I've a notion I could put my finger upon her now, if I choosed. Captain, you haven't got a coil of two-inch which you could lend me--I ain't got a topsail brace to reeve and mine are very queer just now. I reckon they've been turned end for end so often, that there's an end of them." "You say that you know where the vessel is--where is she?" "Captain, that's telling--can't I have the two inch?" "We have not a whole coil of two-inch left, sir," said the master, touching his hat. "We might spare him enough for a pair of new braces." "Well, well, I'm reasonable altogether, and if so be you haven't got it, I don't expect it. It's very odd now, but I can't just now remember the place that the French vessel was going to; it's slipped clean out of my memory." "Perhaps the two-inch might help your memory," replied the captain. "Mr Smith, let the rope be got up and put into the boat." "Well," said the American captain, "as you say, mister, it may help my memory. It's not the first time that I've freshened a man's memory with a bit of two-inch myself," continued he, grinning at his own joke; "but I don't see it coming." "I have ordered it to be put in the boat," replied Captain Delmar, haughtily: "my orders are not disobeyed, nor is my word doubted." "Not by them as knows you, I dare say, captain, but you're a stranger to me; I don't think I ask much, after all--a bit of spar and a bit of rope--just to tell you where you may go and take a fine vessel, and pocket a nation lot of dollars as prize-money. Well, there's the rope, and now I'll tell you. She was going off Berbice or Surinam, to look after the West Indiamen, who were on the coast, or expected on it, I don't know which. There you'll find her, as sure as I stand here; but I think that she is a bit bigger than this vessel--you don't mind that, I dare say." "You may go on board now, sir," said Captain Delmar. "Well, thank ye, captain, and good luck to you." The American captain went down the side; and as soon as our boat returned, and was hoisted up, we made all sail for the coast of Demerara. "She must be a fine vessel," said Captain Delmar to me, as he was walking the deck,--"a very fine vessel, if she is bigger than we are." "You will excuse me, Captain Delmar, if I venture to observe that there was an expression in the eye of the American, when he said a bit bigger, which made me take it into my head, that in saying so, he was only deceiving us. The Americans are not very partial to us, and would be glad of any revenge."