"For a quarter of an hour or so, accordingly, we kept forging slowly ahead, while the brig continued to near us. No one spoke, almost--you heard the lazy swash of the water round our fore-chains, and the stillness aboard had a gloomy enough effect, as one noticed the top of the haze creep up into round vapoury heads upon the sky, and felt it darkening aloft besides. We were scarce three-quarters of a mile apart, and could see her sharp black bows drip over the bright sheathing, as she rolled easily on the swell; when the Indiaman suddenly lost way again, sheered head round, and slap went all her sails from the royals down, as if she had fired a broadside. Almost the next moment, a long low growl ran muttering and rumbling far away round the horizon, from the clouds and back to them again, as if they had been some huge monster or other on the watch, with its broad green muzzle shooting quietly over us as it lay; the brig dipped her gilt figure-head abeam of us, and then showed her long red streak; the swell sinking fast, and the whole sea far and wide coming out from the sky as dark and round as the mahogany drum-head of the capstan. "'Bless me, Small,' said the captain, 'but I hope they've not knocked a hole in my gig--ay, there _they_ are, I think, looking over the brig's quarter--but don't seem to have a boat to swim! Get the cutter hauled alongside, Mr Stebbing,' continued he to the fourth mate, 'and go aboard for them at once--confounded bothering, this! Mind get my gig safe, sir, if you please--can ye _parley-voo_, though, Mr Stebbing?' 'Not a word, sir,' said the young mate, a gentlemanly, rather soft fellow, whom the other three all used to snub. 'Bless me, can't we muster a bit o' French amongst us?' said the skipper; 'catch a _monshoor_ that knows a word of English like any other man--'specially if they've a chance of keeping my gig!' 'Well, sir,' said I, 'I'll be happy to go with the officer, as I can speak French well enough!' 'Thank ye, young gentleman, thank ye,' said he, 'you'll do it as well as any man, I'm sure--only look sharp, if you please, and bring my gig with you!' So down the side we bundled into the cutter, and pulled straight for the brig, which had just hoisted French colours, not old 'three-patches,' of course, but the new Restoration flag. "I overhauled her well as we got near, and a beautiful long schooner-model she was, with sharp bows, and a fine easy-run hull from stem to stern, but dreadfully dirty and spoilt with top-bulwarks, as if they meant to make her look as clumsy as possible; while the brig-rig of her aloft, with the ropes hanging in bights and hitches, gave her the look of a hedge-parson on a race-horse; at the same time, I counted six closed ports of a side, in her red streak, the exact breadth and colour of itself. Full of men, with a long gun, and schooner-rigged, she could have sailed round the Indiaman in a light breeze, and mauled her to any extent.