A strange joy seized me as I sighted the unknown ship. For my heart told me she was no friend, and I was just in the humour for a fight. I was one too many on board the _Misericorde_; and a brush with the Queen's foes just now would comfort me amazingly. And yet, when I came to think of it, she lay in nearer the English coast than we, and was like enough to be no Queen's enemy after all, but a Queen's cruiser on the look-out for suspicious craft like ours. For we floated no colours aloft. After the late fight Ludar had hauled down the Frenchman's flag; but it was in vain I begged him to hoist that of her royal Majesty in its place. He would not hear of it. "No," said he, "I sail under no false colours. This is a voyage for safety, not for glory, else I know the flag would fly there. As it is, Humphrey, 'tis best for us all to fly nothing. The masts shall go bare. The blue of a maiden's eyes is colour enough for you and me to fight under." I could not gainsay him. We were in no trim for receiving broadsides, or grappling with sea-dogs, however merry the ports might be for a man in my plight. Our business was to bring the _Misericorde_ safe into Leith Roads, and to that venture we stood pledged. Ludar ordered the maiden to her quarters and me to my cabin. "In this calm," said he, "'twill be hours before we foregather if foregather we may. So below, while the poet and I whistle for a breeze." Towards afternoon we lay much as we were, drifting a little westward. But then came some clouds up from the south-east and with them a puff into our canvas. "We may be glad to take in a reef on her before daybreak, Captain," said the seaman. "Time, enough till then," said Ludar. "Take all you can now." We had not long to wait before the _Misericorde_ had way on once more. Then Ludar called his crew to him and said: "To-night, be yonder stranger who she may, we run a race. Maiden, you have the keenest eyes; keep the watch forward. Humphrey, do you and the poet see to the guns and have all ready in case we need to show our teeth. Pilot, budge not one point out of the wind; but let her run. We may slip past in the dark, and then we are light-heeled enough to keep ahead. Old nurse, I warrant you have loaded a piece before now--we may need you to do it again. Meanwhile, to bed with you." Then the race began. The wind behind us freshened fast, so that in an hour's time our timbers were creaking under stress of canvas. Before that, the stranger ship, though still a league and a half to larboard, had caught the breeze and was going too, canvas crowded, with her nose a point out of the wind into our course. For a long while it seemed as if we were never to come nearer, so anxious was she to give us no more advantage than she could help. But towards sundown we may have been a league asunder running neck and neck. "She's an English cruiser, Captain," cried the helmsman, "and takes us for a Spaniard--that's flat."