Every one on board was now eager in the chase. The orders were obeyed almost as soon as given. Our proud vessel, under the press of sail, absolutely flew over the water, haughtily tossing the rampant surges from her sides, while her bows were buried in a roaring and swirling sheet of foam, and a broad band of snow stretched far over the dark blue waste astern, showing a wake as strait as an arrow. She was careened down to the breeze, so that her lower studd'n'sail-boom every moment dashed a cloud of spray from the romping billows, and her lee rail was at times under water. Her masts curved and whiffled beneath the immense piles of canvas, like a stringed bow. "She walks the waters bravely," said the captain, casting a glance of exultation at the distended sails and bending spars, and then at our arrowy wake.--"But, by Jupiter, the chase still almost holds her way with us. We need more sail aft. Bear a hand, my men, and run up the ringtail." "That will answer,--a dolphin would have a sweat to beat us in this trim!" "Well, Mr Percy, is yonder dasher the craft that pillaged your ship, and sent you cruising about the ocean in that bit of a cockle-shell, think you?" "That is the pirate schooner--I cannot mistake her," replied Percy, who stood with his flashing eyes rivetted on the vessel, and his fingers impatiently working about the hilt of his cutlass, while his brow was darkened with an intense desire of revenge. Three hours passed, and we had gained within a league of the noble looking craft. She was heeled down to the breeze, so that owing to the 'bagging' of her lower sails, her hull was almost hidden from sight. Like a snowy cloud, she darted along the revelling waters, the sunbeams basking on her wide-spread wings, and the sprightly billows flashing and surging around her bows. Never saw I an object more beautiful. The land was now fully in sight--a stern and rock-bound coast, against which the breakers dashed with maddening violence, and for half a mile from the shore, the water was one conflicting waste of snowy surf and billow. No signs of inhabitants, on either hand, as far as the eye could view, were discernible. The long range of stern, solitary mountains arose from the waves, and towered away till lost in the clouds. Their sides, save where some splintered cliff lifted its gray peaks in the day, were clothed with thick forests, among which the tufted palm and wild cinnamon stood up conspicuously, like sentinels looking afar over the wide waste of blue. Here and there a torrent could be traced, leaping from crag to cliff, seeming, as it blazed in the fierce sun-light, to run liquid fire; and gorgeous masses of wild creepers and tangled undergrowth hung down over the embattled heights, swaying and flaunting in the gale, like the banners and streamers of an encamped army.