But though father and daughter talked these matters over whilst they stepped the white planks and whilst the ship ahead slowly enlarged, the topics which engaged them did not contain all, indeed they did not contain even a very little, of the thoughts which crowded Lucy's mind and gave a dozen varying expressions to her beauty in as many minutes. At about three o'clock in the afternoon the frigate fired one of her bow guns apparently at the _Minorca_, a stern, laconic message to her to heave to; for hours ago it was perceived that the chase was the vessel Captain Acton and the Admiral were hunting; and for hours it must have been known aboard the barque that one of the pursuing ships was a frigate heavily armed, and the other a fabric perfectly familiar to every man in the _Minorca_, as the three-masted schooner _Aurora_, the property of the owner of the barque. Indeed the chase was now so near that with the unaided vision her men might be seen moving upon her decks, and the Admiral's telescope was levelled at a tall figure that stood solitary and apart upon the barque's quarter, surveying with folded arms and erect carriage the ships which were following him with foam to their hawse-pipes. When the _Phoebe's_ cannon suddenly thundered, the Admiral dropped his telescope to look at the frigate, and when he again directed the glass at the _Minorca_, the tall figure, that he well knew to be his son, had vanished. Scarcely had the ball of satin-white smoke, belched from the cannon's mouth, been shredded by the wind and carried low over the heads of the breaking seas in rags and lengths like pieces of a torn silk veil, when the helm of the barque was put down, stun-sail halliards were let go, all in such a hurry that the sails fouled the booms and yard-arms, and painted a scene of confusion aloft, that might have stood as a perfect picture of panic at sea; the yards on the main were laboriously hauled around and the main topsail backed and the barque was at rest, rolling and tumbling very uncomfortably with a great deal of flying and flapping aloft, one man at the wheel, two men standing close beside him in a posture of waiting, and the fore-part of the bulwarks from the gangway to the fore-rigging lined with the heads of the crew. The barque was swiftly neared by the pursuing ships, and when they were within easy oars' range or hailing distance their way was arrested, and immediately down sank a boat from the frigate's side with Mr Fellowes steering her and six sailors, as before, rowing her. The boat made directly for the schooner. "Before we board the _Minorca_," said Captain Acton to the Admiral, "we must hear what Fellowes proposes, or what instructions he comes with from Lord Garlies."