recalling their experiences in voices subdued by excitement; above all, the old, worn, but gallant _Duke_ wearily dipping her faded, blistered bends to the swing of the breathless sea, making in anticipation of the withering roar of her ordnance, now grinning mutely along her sides, a little thunder of her own with the beating of her dark and well-patched canvas against the huge tops and massive cross-trees of her swaying masts. “All the rest of the Day,” says Rogers, “we had very little Wind, so that we made no great Way; and the Boat not returning, kept us in a languishing Condition, not being able to determine whether the Sail was our Consort, the _Marquis_, or the _Acapulco_ Ship. Our Pinnace was still in Sight, and we had nothing to do but to watch her Motions: We could see that she made towards the _Dutchess's_ Pinnace, which rowed to meet her. They lay together some time, and then the _Dutchess's_ Pinnace went back to their Ship which gave us great Hopes.” An officer was sent to the _Dutchess_ to ascertain what the stranger was, and to concert measures, if she should prove an enemy, for engaging her. When he was gone Rogers hoisted the French colours and fired a gun; the strange vessel answered, which satisfied them that she was not the _Marquis_. It is manifest from this that these privateersmen had no private code of signals amongst them. Indeed detection seems to have been entirely a matter of the exhibition of the national bunting, in which there was just the same sort of deception then as there was in later years, and as there ever will be. Shortly after the ship had responded, the officer returned with the report that she was the Manila galleon. The statement fired the spirits of the crew; they hove all their melancholy reflections on the shortness of their provisions overboard, and could think of nothing but the figures they would make when they arrived home with the vast treasure out yonder, stowed snugly away under their hatches. “Every moment,” says Rogers, “seemed an hour till we came up with her.” It was arranged that the two pinnaces should stick to her skirts all night and burn flares, that their own and the position of the chase might be known; and it was further settled that if the _Duke_ and _Dutchess_ were so fortunate as to come up with her together they were to board her at once: a resolution which Dampier, recalling his experiences in the _St. George_, was pretty sure to strengthen by his advice.