le, and takes the whole road
like a drunken man. There can be no one at the helm."

"And how lubberly, sir, her canvas is set! Just look at that
main-taw-sail, sir; one of the sheets isn't home by a fathom, while the
yard is braced in, till it's almost aback!"

The governor walked the deck for five minutes in intense thought, though
occasionally he stopped to look at the brig, now within a league of
them. Then he suddenly called out to Bob, to "see all clear for action,
and to get everything ready to go to quarters."

This order set every one in motion. The women and children were hurried
below, and the men, who had been constantly exercised, now, for five
months, took their stations with the regularity of old seamen. The guns
were cast loose--ten eighteen-pound carronades and two nines, the new
armament--cartridges were got ready, shot placed at hand, and all the
usual dispositions for combat were made. While this was doing, the two
vessels were fast drawing nearer to each other, and were soon within
gun-shot. But, no one on board the Rancocus knew what to make of the
evolutions of the Mermaid. Most of her ordinary square-sails were set,
though not one of them all was sheeted home, or well hoisted. An attempt
had been made to lay the yards square, but one yard-arm was braced in
too far, another not far enough, and nothing like order appeared to have
prevailed at the sail-trimming. But, the of the brig was the most
remarkable. Her general course would seem to be dead before the wind;
but she yawed incessantly, and often so broadly, as to catch some of her
light sails aback. Most vessels take a good deal of room in running down
before the wind, and in a swell; but the Mermaid took a great deal more
than was Common, and could scarce be said to look any way in particular.
All this the governor observed, as the vessels approached nearer and
nearer, as well as the movements of those of the crew who showed
themselves in the rigging.

"Clear away a bow-gun," cried Mark, to Betts--"something dreadful must
have happened; that brig is in possession of the savages, who do not
know how to handle her!"

This announcement produced a stir on board the Rancocus, as may well be
imagined. If the savages had the brig, they probably had the group also;
and what had become of the colonists? The next quarter of an hour was
one of the deepest expectation with all in the ship, and of intense
agony with Mark. Betts was greatly disturbed al