The Oriental was surely lying off somewhere to the west-ward, and the word was given to make all sail, and soon the Diana was bowling along shore, where the sea melted away in a fiery line of foam so close to us that a man could, in nautical phrase, “shy a biscuit” on the sand. The wind was abeam, and the Diana seemed to breathe it through her sails, and flew along at an astonishing rate through the phosphorescent waters with a prow of flame and a bubbling wake of dancing meteor-like streams flowing from her helm, as though it were a furnace whence boiled a stream of liquid metal. “No sign of the Oriental on our lee bow?” “Nothin’ at all in sight, Sir.” The sharks and huge rays flew off from the shore as we passed and darted out seawards, making their runs in brilliant trails of light. On sped the Diana, but no Oriental came in sight. I was tired. The sun had been very hot; the ride through the batteries, the visits to quarters, the excursion to Pickens had found out my weak places, and my head was aching and legs fatigued, and so I thought I would turn in for a short time, and I dived into the shades below, where my comrades were already sleeping, and kicking off my boots, lapsed into a state which rendered me indifferent to the attentions no doubt lavished upon me by the numerous little familiars who recreate in the well-peopled timbers. It never entered into my head, even in my dreams, that the Captain would break the blockade if he could--particularly as his papers had not been indorsed, and the penalties would be sharp and sure if he were caught. But the confidence of coasting captains in the extraordinary capabilities of their craft is a madness--a hallucination so strong that no danger or risk will prevent their acting upon it whenever they can.