Finding that the danger from one's friends below was, if not greater than what threatened on deck, yet sufficiently startling, I left them to shoot each other at their leisure. By this time there was neither moon nor stars to be seen, and the haze that hung on the water, although there was a fine breeze, and we were going along about seven knots, made every thing so indistinct, that it was some time before I could catch the object again. At length I saw her; but as she was stem on, edging down on us, I could not make out more than that she was a large fore-and-aft rigged vessel, decidedly not the Midge. When she had crept up within hail, she brailed up her foresail, and, under her mainsail and jib, appeared to have no difficulty in maintaining her position on our weather-quarter, although we had set every inch of canvas that would draw. There was no light on board, and it was too dark to distinguish any one on her decks. Our master was evidently puzzled what to do; at length, seizing the trumpet, he hailed the strange sail. "What schooner is that?" "The Julia of Baltimore," was the prompt answer. "Where are you bound for?" "Vera Cruz." A long pause, during which she was gradually edging nearer and nearer. "Don't come any closer, or I will fire into you," sung out our skipper; and then, to me, "He'll be on board of us, sir, if we do not mind." "No, no," was the laconic reply, as our persecutor luffed up in the wind; but he soon kept away again until he was right astern, and there he stuck, to our great discomfort, the whole blessed night, yawing about in our wake as if just to keep out of hail. We passed, as may well be imagined, a very anxious night of it; at length day dawned, and we could see about us, but as if to baulk us, as the light increased, the schooner shortened sail still more, and steered more steadily, so that we were prevented from seeing what was going on upon deck; at length, at eight o'clock A.M., he set his foresail, and in ten minutes was again in his old position to windward of us. We were all at quarters once more; even the Dons, finding that there was no alternative, had determined to fight, and as he gradually edged down, I asked the skipper what he thought of it. "I really don't know; I see no one on deck but the man steering, and that fellow sitting on the lee bulwark there, with his arm round the backstay, apparently watching us." "She does not seem to have any guns," said I. By this time the schooner, a long low vessel, painted black, with a white streak, had crept up so close on our weather quarter, that by keeping away a couple of points, he could in half a minute have run his jib-boom over our tafferel.