e fellow by the heels.
Speak every craft that you may fall in with, make enquiries whenever
you have the chance, and perhaps you may be lucky enough to pick up a
slaver or two, and so make the cruise a profitable one in a double
sense; for if that surmise of yours should happen to be correct, that
this pirate brig is the identical craft that stole the slaves from your
prize--the _Dolores_--and afterwards destroyed her, the fellow may have
played the trick on other slavers, in which case they will be glad
enough to give any information that may lead to his capture. And now
the sooner that you are off the better, for you will have none too much
daylight in which to work out clear of the shoals. So, good-bye, my
lad, and good luck to you! Take care of your ship, your crew, and
yourself, and bring the fellow back with you as a prize."

So saying, with a hearty handshake the old gentleman dismissed me, and a
quarter of an hour later the saucy little _Francesca_, in charge of a
pilot, was turning to windward on her way out to the open sea.

The sea breeze lasted us just long enough to enable us to clear the
shoals and handsomely gain an offing of about three miles. Then it died
away and left us wallowing helplessly in the heavy swell that was
running. Meanwhile the sun sank beneath the horizon in one of those
blazes of indescribable glory of colour which seem to be peculiar to the
West Indies. The darkness closed down upon us like a shutter, and the
stars leapt out of the rapidly darkening blue overhead with that soft,
lambent, clarity of light which is never beheld save in the tropics.
Then, after tumbling about uncomfortably for nearly an hour, we felt the
land breeze, and, squaring away before it, soon ran off into the true
breeze of the trade wind.

The following three weeks passed uneventfully in carrying out the first
part of the programme upon which Sir Timothy and I had agreed, including
a very careful but fruitless search of the entire group of the
Grenadines, between Grenada and Saint Vincent. After this we proceeded
toward the spot which was to be our cruising ground, and called at the
little town of Kingstown, in the latter island, for a few hours, in
order to replenish our supplies and lay in a stock of fruit.

Thus far we had been favoured with splendid weather, but on the fifth
day out from Saint Vincent I observed that the barometer and the wind
were falling simultaneously, and by sunset the trade wi