We sullenly returned into the boat; and the instant we did so, the anchor, already atrip, was brought home; the ship's bows fell rapidly off; her crowded canvass dilated and swelled in the spanking breeze, and she sprang swiftly off upon her course. It was a pretty and somewhat exciting spectacle; and I and my companions continued to watch the smartly-handled vessel with much interest till a point of land hid her from our view. We then turned our faces towards Plymouth, from which, I was surprised to find, we were apparently as distant as ever. "The tide, let alone the wind, is dead against us!" growled the master of the boat, who was now pulling the near oar, in reply to a remark from one of the Plymouth officers. This man had steered on going out. A quick suspicion flashed across me. "Where is the other boatman who came out with us?" I sharply demanded. The old seaman, instead of replying, turned himself half round towards the weather-bow oar, exclaiming, "Easy, Billy--easy; let her nose lay a little closer to the wind!" This, I readily saw, was done to conceal a momentary confusion, arising from the suddenness of my question--a very slight one by the by, for the fellow was an old man-of-war's man, with a face hardened and bronzed by service, weather, grog, and tobacco smoke. I repeated the question in a more peremptory tone. The veteran first deliberately squirted a mouthful of tobacco juice over the side, and then with an expression of his cast-iron phiz, which it is impossible by words to convey a distinct idea of, so compounded was it of diabolical squint, lamb-like simplicity, and impudent cunning, replied, "That wor a passenger to Yankee Land--a goin' there, I'm purty suspicious, for the benefit of his health." I looked at the Plymouth officers, and they at me. The impudent ingenuity of the trick that had been played us seemed scarcely credible. "He--he--ho--ho!" rumbled out of the tobacco-stifled throat of the old rogue, "If he wor somebody you wanted, it wor uncommon well done. Didn't you obsarve him jump into the main chains of the barkey jist as you wor leavin' on her, and cast us off a minute afterwards? He perfarred stoppin' with us whilst you wor rummagin' the hooker--he--he--ho--ho!" It was useless bandying words with the fellow; and though I felt desperately savage, I had sense enough to hold my tongue. "Pull smartly," said one of the Plymouth officers; "a shot will bring her too yet." "Why, ay," rejoined the imperturbable seaman; "it mout, if you could get speech of the admiral in time; but I'm thinkin' we shall be a good while yet pullin' in against this choppin' wind and head sea." And sure enough they were! More than another hour, by some boatman-craft unexplainable by me, for the sailors apparently rowed with all their might, were we in reaching the landing-place; and by that time all chance of compelling the return of the _Columbia_ was long past.