"Let us catch our hare before we eat her," said Adair. "I tell you what I do wish; that we were in a smaller craft, and then you and I would have a chance of getting sent away together. Wouldn't that be fun?" Jack agreed that it would, but both of them began to look very blank when darkness closed in on them, and the chase was still several miles ahead. When the frigate first made out the chase she was standing to the eastward, and was about a hundred miles off Cape Palmas. She was then running towards the Bight of Biafra. Captain Lascelles kept the frigate on nearly the same course, edging slightly in towards the land, for he suspected that the ship was bound in for one of the harbours on the Gold or Slave-Coast, and would probably stand in towards the land during the night. Neither of the midshipmen turned in that night. The thought that they were about to take their first prize kept, indeed, many others out of their hammocks, and sharp eyes were on the watch for her in every direction during the night. In spite of their sharpness, however, not a sign of the chase could be discovered. Yet as she was not seen on either hand, the probabilities were that she was still ahead. "Do you know, Terence, this reminds me of the time when we chased the Turkish frigate which had you on board off the Egyptian coast," said Jack. "I only hope that we may be more fortunate, and catch her before she gets on shore and blows up." "I shall be glad if we can catch her on the water, or earth, or sky," answered Terence. "These slavers are slippery fellows, and it is no easy matter to get hold of them." The night wore on. When the morning at length broke the mast-heads were crowded with visitors. They rubbed their eyes and their telescopes, and then looked through the latter, and rubbed and rubbed again; and then they pulled very long faces at each other, for the ship could nowhere be seen. Many of them remained aloft, still looking for her, but at last they came down and looked at each other, and voted themselves sold. However, they went to breakfast, and as they walked the deck after it they hoped that they might have better luck next time. The men's dinner was just over, when once more everybody was put on the alert by hearing "Sail ho!" sung out from the mast-head. "Where away?" asked Captain Lascelles, who was walking the deck at the time. "Right ahead, sir," was the answer. The captain himself went aloft. When he came down again he told Mr Holt that he believed she was the identical ship they had chased the previous day. The frigate rapidly got up with her. "How jolly to think that we shall catch her after all," exclaimed Jack, as they got near enough to the chase to see halfway down her courses. "But what is the matter with her? She seems to have altered her course."