nging towards
the Drake, with anchor ready to drop, and grapnels to hug. But the wind
was high; the anchor was not dropped at the ordered time. The ranger
came to a stand three biscuits' toss off the unmisgiving enemy's
quarter, like a peaceful merchantman from the Canadas, laden with
harmless lumber.

"I shan't marry her just yet," whispered Paul, seeing his plans for the
time frustrated. Gazing in audacious tranquillity upon the decks of the
enemy, and amicably answering her hail, with complete self-possession,
he commanded the cable to be slipped, and then, as if he had
accidentally parted his anchor, turned his prow on the seaward tack,
meaning to return again immediately with the same prospect of advantage
possessed at first--his plan being to crash suddenly athwart the Drake's
bow, so as to have all her decks exposed point-blank to his musketry.
But once more the winds interposed. It came on with a storm of snow; he
was obliged to give up his project.

Thus, without any warlike appearance, and giving no alarm, Paul, like an
invisible ghost, glided by night close to land, actually came to anchor,
for an instant, within speaking-distance of an English ship-of-war; and
yet came, anchored, answered hail, reconnoitered, debated, decided, and
retired, without exciting the least suspicion. His purpose was
chain-shot destruction. So easily may the deadliest foe--so he be but
dexterous--slide, undreamed of, into human harbors or hearts. And not
awakened conscience, but mere prudence, restrain such, if they vanish
again without doing harm. At daybreak no soul in Carrickfergus knew that
the devil, in a Scotch bonnet, had passed close that way over night.

Seldom has regicidal daring been more strangely coupled with
octogenarian prudence, than in many of the predatory enterprises of
Paul. It is this combination of apparent incompatibilities which ranks
him among extraordinary warriors.

Ere daylight, the storm of the night blew over. The sun saw the Ranger
lying midway over channel at the head of the Irish Sea; England,
Scotland, and Ireland, with all their lofty cliffs, being as
simultaneously as plainly in sight beyond the grass-green waters, as the
City Hall, St. Paul's, and the Astor House, from the triangular Park in
New York. The three kingdoms lay covered with snow, far as the eye could
reach.

"Ah, Yellow-hair," said Paul, with a smile, "they show the white flag,
the cravens. And, while the white flag stays blan