I were in your place I don't think
I should feel quite easy in my mind yet. If that thunder-storm which
has been brewing for so long were to break, as it may do at any moment,
the flash of the lightning would be certain to reveal your whereabouts
to them."

"I reckon we'll have to take our chance of that," remarked Johnson in a
more sober tone; "but let it keep dark half an hour longer, and I don't
care how much it lightens after that. Ah, tarnation! look at that."

This last ejaculation was provoked by the sudden illumination of the
northern heavens by a brilliant flash of sheet lightning, which revealed
not only every detail of the vast bank of murky clouds which lay heaped
up, as it were, upon the horizon, but also distinctly showed the frigate
on its very verge, still holding steadily northward, her hull and sails
standing out sharply like a block of ebony against the faint bluish
gleam of the electric light.

Another flash soon followed, then another, and another, the flashes
following each other with increasing rapidity, to Johnson's manifest
discomfiture; but, though he was evidently unaware of it, the brig was
so far perfectly safe from discovery; for the lightning continued to
flash up only in the northern quarter, leaving the remainder of the
horizon veiled in impenetrable darkness; so that, though the frigate was
distinctly revealed to the brig, the brig was completely hidden from the
frigate.

The lightning, however, though it had not yet shown the brig's
whereabouts, had enabled those on board the frigate to ascertain that
she was not ahead of them, as they had supposed, for when the next flash
came the man-o'-war was seen nearly broadside-on to the brig, and
heading about south-west, her captain having evidently come to the
conclusion that the _Albatross_, after setting her lure, had doubled
back like a hare upon her former course.

Johnson waited until another flash came, revealing the frigate still
upon the same course, and then he gave orders for his vessel to be kept
away, steering this time to the southward and eastward, or about at
right angles to the course of the frigate. Ten minutes later the latter
was hull-down.

"_Now_ we're safe!" ejaculated the pirate skipper delightedly. "Clew up
and furl everything, lads, and be smart about it, for in another five
minutes we'll have the lightning flashing all round us; but under bare
poles I guess it'll take sharp eyes to pick us out."

"Waal,