o is known to excite in the enraged bull. Sundry
smaller sails, which could do but little good, but which answered the
purpose of appearing to wish to quicken his speed, were instantly set
aboard the stranger; and not a brace, or a bow-line, was suffered to
escape without an additional pull. In short, he wore the air of the
courser who receives the useless blows of the jockey, when already at the
top of his speed, and when any further excitement is as fruitless as his
own additional exertions. Still there seemed but little need of such
supererogatory efforts. By this time, the two vessels were fairly trying
there powers of sailing, and with no visible advantage in favour of
either. Although the "Dolphin" was renowned for her speed, the stranger
manifested no inferiority that the keenest scrutiny might detect. The ship
of the freebooter was already bending to the breeze, and the jets of spray
before her were cast still higher and further in advance; but each impulse
of the wind was equally felt by the stranger, and her movement over the
heaving waters seemed to be as rapid and as graceful as that of her rival.

"Yon ship parts the water as a swallow cuts the air," observed the chief
of the freebooters to the youth, who still kept at his elbow, endeavouring
to conceal an uneasiness which was increasing at each instant. "Has she a
name for speed?"

"The curlew is scarcely faster. Are we not already nigh enough, for men
who cruise with commissions no better than our own pleasure?"

The Rover glanced a look of impatient suspicion at the countenance of his
companion; but its expression changed to a smile of haughty audacity, as
he answered,--

"Let him equal the eagle in his highest and swiftest flight, he shall find
us no laggards on the wing! Why this reluctance to be within a mile of a
vessel of the Crown?"

"Because I know her force, and the hopeless character of a contest with an
enemy so superior," returned Wilder, firmly. "Captain Heidegger, you
cannot fight yon ship with success; and, unless instant use be made of the
distance which still exists between us, you cannot escape her. Indeed, I
know not but it is already too late to attempt the latter."

"Such, sir, is the opinion of one who overrates the powers of his enemy,
because use, and much talking, have taught him to reverence it as
something more than human. Mr Wilder, none are so daring or so modest, as
those who have long been accustomed to place their depe