It was as I had feared, and had the captain of the man-of-war promised to blow his ship and men into a thousand atoms if the boat's crew refused to obey his orders to board us, they would have accepted that fate in preference to the hideous alternative adventure. In a trice the pinnace was alongside the frigate, the crew over the rail, and the boat hoisted. The yards on the main flew round, royals and topgallant-sails were set, studding-sails were run aloft, and before ten minutes had elapsed since the boat had started to board us, the frigate, under a whole cloud of canvas, was heeling and gently rolling and pitching over the brilliant blue sea, with her head north east, her stern dead at us, the gilt there and the windows converting her betwixt her quarters into the appearance of a huge sparkling square of crystal, the glory of which flung upon her wake under it a splendour so great that it was as though she had fouled a sunbeam and was dragging the dazzle after her. I looked at Imogene; her beautiful eyes had yearned after the ship into the dimness of tears. "My dear, do not fret,", said I, again calling her my dear, for I still lacked the courage to call her my love; "this experience makes me clear on one point: we shall escape, but not by a ship." "How, if not by a ship?" she cried, tremulously. Before I could reply, Vanderdecken looked round upon us, and came our way, at the same time telling Van Vogelaar to swing the topsail-yard and board his main tack. "'Tis in this fashion," he exclaimed, "that most of the ships I meet serve me. It would be enough to make me deem your countrymen a lily-livered lot if the people of other nations, my own included, did not sheer off before I could explain my needs or learn their motives in desiring to board us. What alarmed the people of that ship, think you, mynheer?" "Who can tell, sir?" I responded, in as collected a manner as I could contrive. "They might suspect us hardly worth the trouble of capturing----" He motioned an angry dissent. "Or," I continued, abashed and speaking hurriedly, "they might have seen something in the appearance of your crew to promise a bloody resistance." "By the Holy Trinity!" he cried, with the most vehement scorn, "if such a thing were conceivable I should have been glad to confirm it with a broadside!" and his eye came from the frigate that was fast lessening in the distance to his poor show of rust-eaten sakers and green-coated swivels.