cargo of
three hundred slaves on board, bound for Havana. I lost no time in
turning her over to Jack Keene, with a prize crew of twelve men, with
instructions to take her into Port Royal for adjudication, and to await
there the arrival of the schooner. Before parting company I seized the
opportunity to question the crew of the _San Antonio_ as to the brig of
which I was in search, but they professed to know nothing whatever of
her.

By midday all signs of the hurricane had disappeared, the sea had gone
down, and the trade wind had returned, blowing briskly out from about
east-north-east.

It was therefore a fair wind for the prize, and half an hour after I had
secured a meridian altitude of the sun for the determination of our
latitude Master Jack bore up, dipped his colours, and squared away.

Now ensued a fortnight of uneventful and wearisome cruising along the
parallel of 21 deg. north latitude, and between the meridians of 62 deg. and 74 deg.
west longitude, that being the line upon which I thought it most likely
that I might encounter the pirate, or at least gather some news of him.
During that period we sighted and spoke not far short of forty sail, of
one sort and another, both outward and homeward bound, but learned not a
word that would furnish us with a clue to the whereabouts of the craft
that we were so anxiously seeking. I was beginning to fear that our
quarry had betaken himself to some other cruising ground altogether,
when one morning, at dawn, Simpson, who had charge of the watch, sent
down word to say that there was a brig in sight that he would very much
like me to come up and look at, as he seemed to recognise her.
Accordingly, without waiting to dress I tumbled out of my bunk and made
my way up on deck. We were on a bowline under short canvas at the time,
to the eastward of the Silver Bank, the tail of which we had cleared
about an hour before, while the stranger was apparently hove-to dead to
windward of us, and hull-down from the deck.

There was not much to be learned by looking at the stranger from the
level of the deck. I therefore slung the glass over my shoulder and
made my way aloft as far as the main cross-trees, from which a full view
of her was to be obtained. But before so much as taking a single look
at her through the telescope, her behaviour assured me that she must be
either a ship of war, or a craft of decidedly suspicious character. For
no ordinary trader would be lying