"What would I do if I was them?" summed up the captain. "Well, that would depend too. If I had two or three hundred passengers aboard, and each one worth so much alive and nothing dead, I'd want to get 'em home alive as quick as possible. If I was well stocked with provisions I might carry on with this wind for the coast. If I was anyways short I'd probably try a beat straight for home. If we don't sight them in two days we'll edge up north-east a bit; but I'm pretty sure they'll keep this wind as long as they can, and chances are we'll sight them within twenty-four hours. They're probably not hurrying, and we're making every inch we can." But it was the morning of the third day before the welcome hail from aloft brought every soul on board into the bows, to search for the tiny mote on the horizon on which all their hopes were concentrated. It was a very early bird who had discovered the worm. He had gone up aloft before the dawn, and, as the sun shot up, the rim of the sea was lucent like the edge of a glass plate brimming with water. An almost invisible flaw, a mere film against the light, was enough for the practised eye, and his joyful "Sail ho!" turned the ship upside-down. Captain Cathie swung up alongside the look-out with his glasses, and was presently on deck again beaming contentedly. "That's her right enough," he said. "A brig, and we're raising her fast. You'll see her from below here inside an hour." "When shall we catch her up?" asked Blair anxiously. "Perhaps by three o'clock or so," said Cathie, after a moment's consideration, but added cautiously, "if the wind holds," and, as if resenting his doubt, the sails gave an ominous warning flap. "Right," said the captain, with a determined nod, and set the engineers to work at once to get up steam. "We'd be as well to have it on anyhow, to keep the weather gauge of him when we come up," and presently the screw was churning the merry bubbles up astern, and the chase was rising slowly on the horizon. The brig, however, had held the wind longer than they had. It was mid-afternoon before they got within range of her, and she was still drawing slowly along with sails that bulged and flapped in desultory catspaws. "Shall I send a shot over her, just to show we mean business?" brimmed Cathie. "No shots unless they're absolutely necessary, captain," said Blair. "We'll hail her first. And I think you ladies had better go below. Their answer may be lead." Aunt Jannet was for resisting. "I want to see," said she. "There may be things not for your seeing, Aunt Jannet," said Blair quietly, "and other things besides. Please go with the others and keep them from feeling nervous if you can." So the ladies went below, and we may imagine to what helpful furtherance of patient waiting they betook themselves. CHAPTER XIII THE MAN'S MAN'S MAN