en my serious suspicions of her nature.

I could see there were two whale-boats ahead of her, and it was very
plain to me that it was by means of these that the bark was making head
against the current. At first I was more than ever amazed at this,
seeing that the current at that point could not run at less than the
rate of two or three knots an hour, against which two boats could not
hope to tow a craft of her size without some contrivance to aid their
efforts. Every now and then I could hear the clicking of the capstan, as
though the vessel was heaving anchor, and led by this sound, I after a
while perceived how she was making way, though if I had not seen the
same plan used in the Strait of Malacca by the _City of Worcester_, when
I was there in the year '17, I much misdoubt whether I could have so
readily discovered the design which they were in this instance using. As
it was, I was not long in finding out what they were about.

The two boats ahead of the strange craft were towing a square sail
through the water by a line fastened to the middle of the same. From all
four corners of this sail ran good stout ropes, which were made fast to
the anchor cable of the bark. The two boats might tow this square
through the water easily enough by that one line fastened to the middle,
because the sail would then close and so slip easily through the water;
but so soon as the bark began to haul upon it from all four corners it
spread out as though filled with wind, and so offered a vast resistance
to the water. By this contrivance the bark was making headway at about
the rate of a knot an hour against the current, so that by seven o'clock
she was clear out beyond the cape and into the open water beyond.

At that time the sun had not yet gone down, and the distant vessel stood
out against the reddish-gray sky to the eastward, with all the cordage
and the masts as sharp as so many hairs and straws in the red light of
the setting sun.

I was standing just under the poop-deck at the time, with the glass to
my eye, when, of a sudden, I saw something black begin rising from the
deck to the fore. There was not enough breeze going to spread it, but I
knew as well as anything in all of my life that it was the "Black
Roger," and that the white that I could see among the folds was the
wicked sign of the "skull and crossbones," which those bloody and cruel
wretches are pleased to adopt as the ensign of their trade. Nor were we
long in dou