rs, measuring the distance between the two vessels as if he
were a government surveyor, and especially appointed to make a
hydrographical chart of the Caribbean Sea. Occasionally, too, we could
see him approach the binnacle, spread a chart on the deck at his feet,
examine it closely with a pair of dividers in his hands, and then he
would return to his seat on the taffrail, cigar in his mouth and
quadrant to his eye as before.

"Nor were we idle on board the 'Scourge;' for when the breeze lulled we
slacked up the lower rigging and stays, got down all extra weight and
hamper from the tops, sent the watch below to the berth-deck with a
round shot apiece in their hammocks, moved a couple of carronades about
the spar-deck till we got the ship in the best sailing trim, and then we
went skipping and springing through the water with the elasticity of an
India-rubber ball.

"At noon the sailing-master reported the position of the ship to be two
hundred and eighty miles from the nearest land, which was the Darien
Coast. So all that day and all that night, with a moon to make a lover
weep to see, we went bowling after our waspish consort in hopes before
long of taking the sting out of her. No kite ever pursued its quarry
with a keener eye than we did. No hound ever leaped after a wolf with
the froth streaming from his jaws and blood-red thirsty eyes, than did
the 'Scourge' chase that infamous pirate. The delay only made our eyes
sparkle and our teeth sharper in expectation; for we knew we would have
our prey sooner or later, and it was only a bite and a pleasure
deferred.

"The next morning and all the day there was no change to speak of in our
respective positions. The 'Centipede' went skimming on over the water
with every thread of canvas she could spread, reeling over on her side
at times when the breeze freshened, while the spray flashed up joyously
and sparkled in the sun, leaving a bubbling current of foam in her wake,
which, before it had been entirely lost in the regular waves of the sea,
the corvette's sharp bows would plunge into, and again make it flash
high up to her fore-yard, and then go seething, and hissing, and kissing
her black sides until it rippled around her rudder and was lost again in
the wake astern.

"And all the time that man sat with a cigar in his mouth on the pirate's
taffrail, while Commodore Cleveland there stood with a spy-glass to his
eye on the poop of the 'Scourge.'

"You may imagine, gentl