She was within a couple of miles when she shaped herself out of the rain-thickened murkiness. The _Aurora_ was making a free wind, and every stitch of canvas was doing its work. Was yonder stranger French or English? The Admiral and Captain Acton, who were both on deck, left Captain Weaver to his own devices, sensible that they were in the hands of a shrewd, well-seasoned, practical sailor, who knew his ship better than they did. "We'll test her," said he, and the tricolour was run aloft. No flag aboard the brig was to be seen in response. The schooner was crossing the stranger's bows when the brig suddenly let fly a shotted gun at her. Whatever her nationality it was plain she was not satisfied with the show of bunting flying aboard a vessel that any practised eye could at once see was not of French paternity. "Keep her away three points!" cried Captain Weaver, which shift of helm would leave the schooner in fuller possession of her powers of flight. And immediately afterwards he shouted: "Haul down that lie, and hoist the British Ensign! She shall have the truth, and it'll make the truth known to us." Scarcely was the ensign blowing from its halliards when the brig fired a second shot, and as the passage of the _Aurora_ and the shifting of her helm had brought the brig's trysail-gaff into view the schooner's crew saw the French flag streaming from the end of it. Immediately the _Aurora's_ change of course was perceived the brig trimmed her canvas for a chase; she set stun-sails from lower boom to both topgallant yard-arms; these additional wings threw her out against the weeping gloom in a large, looming, menacing mass irradiated by an occasional flash of bow gun which dyed her canvas with a sudden yellow glare as of lightning. But these explosions were soon stopped, and the pursuit was continued in silence. It was idle, however, to call it a pursuit. It was a procession with the leader walking fast ahead and the follower lagging. On board the _Aurora_ they saw the brig's round bows bursting the surge into sheets of brilliant whiteness which raced under her row of iron teeth like the foaming cascade of a weir; whilst alongside the keen fore-foot and the clean copper and beautifully moulded run of the _Aurora_ the brine swept past with no more noise than a shower of rain upon the sea, in a narrow band on either hand which, uniting at the rudder, rushed off in a ribbon of wake that shone like pearl.