Captain Conyngham knew her to be one of the fast king’s cutters long before he had looked at her through the glass, but he held his own course as if unconcerned, and now the expected resort to strategy was necessary. At his orders the Dutch flag had been shown, and the cutter, although coming nearer and nearer, showed apparently no signs of suspicion. The watch on deck lolled over the rail, glancing from the approaching vessel to their young skipper, who like themselves was leaning over the side puffing a cloud of smoke from a long clay pipe. Occasionally, however, he would give an order to the helmsman that was obeyed, and it was seen that almost imperceptibly the brig was edging up nearer the wind, and that the approaching cutter, that was sailing close hauled also, would pass astern of her. The captain turned for an instant, from measuring the lessening distance between the two vessels, to see how the crew were taking it, for any untoward action now might attract the other’s attention. Captain Conyngham could not make up his mind at first as to whether she intended hailing him or not, and still in doubt, he spoke to the first mate, a lean New Englander, who sat on the edge of the cabin transom, smilingly addressing him. “Mr. Jarvis, I wonder which of us speaks the best Dutch?” he half queried. “If that fellow yonder intends to hail us, we’ve got to get an answer ready. I’m pretty good on Spanish, and I can ‘parlez-vous’ after a fashion, but Dutch has been Dutch to me. We should have flown the Spanish flag, but it’s too late now, bad luck to it.” “Wa-al,” the Yankee answered, “I’m thinkin’ if we just squeeze her the least bit more she’ll be at jus’ such a distance that y’u couldn’t make nothin’ out through a speakin’-trumpet, and Dutch is Dutch to most Englishmen anyhow.” By this time the figures on board the approaching cutter could be plainly seen. On the quarter-deck there were two officers standing together, while forward the crew lay bunched together, sheltering, behind the low bulwarks, from the spray that dashed over her bows. Again Captain Conyngham looked at his own crew standing in the waist. Talking together were the two sailormen who had had the mark upon them of the royal service. One, Captain Conyngham had suspected from the very first of being a deserter from one of the English ships that had touched at an American port. His name--Higgins--also might have gone to strengthen his suspicion, and he had a little Devonshire twist in his speech. The other, a shorter man, with light blue eyes, was a compatriot of the young captain; he had a broad stretch of upper lip, and the strong brogue of the west coast. Conyngham’s eye fell upon these two as they stood there and suddenly he started. They were whispering almost beneath their breath. Strange to say the supposed deserter showed no signs of the fear that the occasion might have demanded; yet he was a trifle nervous, for his fingers hitched at the lanyard of his clasp-knife.