"I had just swallowed what I had sense enough to know was considered as my last glass of wine, and had come on deck, when, looking out to leeward, where the setting sun was casting a blinding wake on the blue waters that blazed up in our faces, roasting our skin into the colour of scarlet, I thought I saw a dark object on the very verge of the horizon. From the afternoon having come on thick, this had not been noticed before; but just as I had made the discovery, the lookout man at the masthead hailed, 'a strange sail, abeam of us to leeward.' "'Thank you for nothing,' responded the crusty lieutenant; 'you blind beetle you, is it _now_ you see it? Why, we can see under her topsails from the deck here.' "'May be, sir,' answered the man, 'but the weather has been thick as buttermilk down to leeward until this moment.' "'All hands make sail,' instantly followed, and in five minutes we ran off the wind, with every rag set that we could spread. A stern chase is proverbially a long chase, and although our friend a-head set nothing as we neared him that he had not abroad before, the next morning broke, and we were still three miles astern of him: Jamaica being in sight to leeward. As the sun rose, the breeze freshened, and before noon we had to hand the royals, and stand by the studding-sail haulyards. The fiery sea-breeze that struck us, presently quelled the courage of the chase, for he had to take in his kites also, with the loss of his foretopmast-studding-sail; and as we carried the breeze down with us, we were presently alongside, and I was sent on board in the boat. "I touched my hat to the master, 'What brig, if you please?' "'The Stormy Peterel, of, and from St John's, New Brunswick.' "'Whither bound?' "'To Kingston, Jamaica, with a cargo of flour and _notions_, consigned to Macaa, Walker, and Co.'