m an
opportunity of acquiring whatever information it might be in their power
to give. The first individual he saw on emerging from the hatchway was
Johnson, the pirate captain, who was leaning moodily over the lee rail
abaft the main-rigging, smoking a well-seasoned pipe.

"Good morning, captain," exclaimed Lance genially, as he sauntered up to
the man. "What a delightful morning--and how good your tobacco smells!
I have not enjoyed the luxury of a pipe for the last fortnight; have you
any tobacco to spare?"

"Help yourself, stranger," answered Johnson rather surlily, as he
tendered his tobacco-pouch.

"Thanks," said Lance, returning the pouch after he had filled and
lighted his pipe. "Ah! how good this is," as he took the first whiff or
two. "You have a fine breeze after yesterday's calm; and the brig seems
quite a traveller in her small way."

"In her small way!" exclaimed Johnson indignantly; "why, she's a
_flyer_, stranger, that's what she is. I reckon you don't know much
about ships, or you wouldn't talk like that. I guess you ain't a
sailor, are you?"

"I am a soldier by profession," answered Lance, "but for all that I am
not exactly an unmitigated land-lubber; on the contrary I am quite an
enthusiastic yachtsman, and I flatter myself that I know a good model
when I see one."

"And yet you don't take much account of the brig, stranger?"

"She seems a good enough little craft of her kind," admitted Lance, "and
as a mere trader I have no doubt she would answer well enough. But it
strikes me that, to gentlemen of your profession, a really fast and
powerful vessel is an absolute necessity if you would insure your own
safety. In weather like this I daresay you would manage tolerably well;
but if a frigate were by any chance to fall in with you in a fresh
breeze, or, worse still, in heavy weather, I fear you would find
yourselves in a `tight place;' she would have you under her guns in less
than an hour."

"That's so, stranger; yes, I reckon that's so," conceded Johnson with
evident reluctance. "There _are_ ships as can outsail us, I know, for
we've fallen in with some half a dozen clippers, and we couldn't do
nothing with 'em; they just walked away from us. And though I don't
calculate that there's ever a frigate afloat as could get alongside them
tea-ships if the tea-ships didn't want 'em to, yet I guess there's
frigates as _could_ overhaul us in heavy weather. And so you're a
yachtsman, eh? Th