"Stand in as close as you can, but don't get on shore, though," cried the captain. "Ay, ay, sir," answered Jack, well pleased to follow the orders given. The frigate stood on for some distance after the gig, but she had to be hove-to that the depth of water might be ascertained, and this gave the Don an advantage of which he did not fail to profit. Though guns were continually fired at him, the gig was too small an object at that distance to enable even the best of marksmen to hit her with any certainty. When the frigate hove-to, the schooner once more passed her. Nearer and nearer she drew to the shore. "We must take care not to wreck our well-won prize," observed Jack to Terence, and a lead and line having been found, he wisely sent a hand into the chains, to heave it as soon as he had rounded the schooner to. Well was it that he did so, for in a very few minutes more the schooner would have been on shore. It was provoking, however, to see the wicked old Spaniard pulling on triumphantly. They watched the gig as long as they could with their glasses. She disappeared amid a cloud of foaming surf, which seems ever, even in the calmest weather, to be breaking on that shore. "The old fellow has escaped us now, but we will still have him some time or other--depend on that," said Jack, shutting up his glass. "However, we have destroyed his barracoons, and now we've captured his schooner-- that's one consolation. He can't love us, though." Truly, indeed, did Don Diogo nourish a bitter desire for revenge against the British generally, and the officers and the crew of the _Ranger_ especially, which he was one day destined to have an opportunity of gratifying to the full. The frigate's studding-sails being rigged in, she, with her prize in company, shaped a course for Sierra Leone. Both Jack and Terence had been so severely handled when boarding, though they did not feel much of their wounds during the excitement of chasing the Don, that it was necessary for them to return on board the frigate to be under the doctor's hands, while another officer was put in charge of the prize. This was a great disappointment, but Captain Lascelles promised them that they should have command of the next prize the frigate might take. Having seen the prize some way on her course, the _Ranger_ stood back to her cruising ground to the southward. In consequence of head-winds and calms she made but slow progress, and thus some weeks slowly passed away after the events I have described, before her people had much work to do. This was a great advantage, as it enabled Jack and Terence and the sick and wounded men to recover, away from the noxious air of the coast.