eteers Keys; for I was pretty well fagged out
myself, and all of us who had the watch below turned in to take the
first wink of sleep we could catch for forty hours.

"The next morning, however, when I took the deck, I found the corvette
under royals and flying-jib, with a fresh trade wind blowing from about
east-northeast, and a smooth sea; though close hauled as we were, and
going ten knots, the spray was flying well up the weather leech of the
fore-sail. The 'Centipede' was about a mile and a half ahead, jammed on
the wind, and trying all she could to eat the wind out of us; but, as
the commodore there said at the time, he had thrown that trick away when
he cut off eight or ten feet of his fore-mast, and made a brigantine of
the craft, so that he could not brace his head-yards sharper, or lie
nearer the wind than we did.

"I remember, also, that two or three of the officers and half a hundred
of the sailors were very anxious to pitch shot at the chase from the
long eighteen in the weather bridle port; but the captain refused, and
said we might lose a cable's length or two in yawing off to fire, and it
would be better to save the powder until we could slam a broadside into
him. But all the while that 'Centipede' was handled and steered in such
a thorough seamanlike manner, and proved herself such a beautiful
sea-boat, that I doubt if there was a man on board the 'Scourge' who
would not have given a year's pay to have taken her whole, and only
expended a spare top-mast studding-sail halliards for the necks of her
crew.

"From the top-gallant forecastle we could see every thing that took
place on the schooner's deck: sometimes a lot of fellows forward reeving
some fresh gear, peering about the low bowsprit, or putting on a seizing
to a traveler on the jib-stay; with a chap or two aloft stitching a
chafing-mat on the lee backstays; and then aft a man shinning up the
main shrouds with a tin pot hung around his neck, greasing the jaws of
the main gaff, and twitching a wrinkle out of the gaff-top-sail, so that
it would lie as flat as this dining-room table set on end.

"But always, from the very first moment we descried her--before the
hurricane and afterward--there were two fellows abaft by the taffrail.
One a large fat man, in a long dark dress, who appeared at times to be
leaning over the rail as if he were sea-sick; and the other a spare,
tall-built fellow, who sat there with a quadrant in his hands and
smoking ciga