When all hands returned to the deck, there was not a sound. Although having almost to feel their way, a light new cable was brought up and flaked neatly up and down the deck. Then Captain Symington took the end of it into the stern sheets of his gig, which was silently dropped into the water, and with four men pulling at the carefully muffled oars he made off from beneath the bows, heading for the big French brig, the cable noiselessly paying out into the water over the _Rattler's_ bows. It did not take him long to make fast to the moorings of the brig. This done, he waited anxiously. "They are heaving away now, sir," whispered one of the men in the bow of the boat. Sure enough, the cable had tautened under the strain that was being put upon it. Symington at first feared that some attention might be attracted on board the Frenchman; but there came no sound, and he knew that his people on board the _Rattler_ had silently slipped moorings and that she had way upon her. On board the privateer's deck, barefooted men were walking away with the cable over their shoulders and causing their light vessel to come boldly along through the water. At a certain length from where the cable was to be made fast, a bit of marline had been tied, and when this came inboard the orders were to 'vast heaving, belay, and drop the anchor that had been only "hove short"; that is, lifted from the sand. Soon this point was reached. Symington, cast loose, came on board; a second cable was prepared and spliced to the first, and off he started to make fast to the next vessel lying farther out. And thus did Symington warp himself beyond the mouth of the inner harbor to a place where he considered it safe enough to get out his sweeps. Manning these, for an hour and more he kept at it. But it was dangerous work. The tides were going down, and although he kept the lead going, he might run on one of the sand-bars at any moment. That he was well out of the channel he knew to a certainty. So at last he dropped anchor, silently, and patiently waited for the fog that had saved him so far, to clear up enough for him to get his bearings. Toward daylight a slight breeze sprang up, and to his alarm Symington found that a stretch of low beach was under his lee, and it behooved him well to work the _Rattler_ farther out. Getting sail enough up to enable him to trip his anchor, he drew away from shore. Slowly the fog closed down upon him again quite as thick as it had been some hours previously; but all at once the First Mate, who was forward, cried out in fright:-- "Starboard your helm! Hard a starboard!" The _Rattler's_ bow fell off a few points, and at that instant there came the shock of a collision, followed by a hail in good sea-faring English, seemingly from up in the air. "What are you doing there? What vessel is that?" Then there was some bawling and much noise of movement and another hail in a voice that had not yet spoken.