ned the shore through
the telescope to see whether there was a spot on which our pursuers
could beach their boat and get rid of the water by the simple process of
turning her over and pouring the water out of her, but I could see no
such spot; the whole shore, right out to the narrows, was steep-to, with
a confused fringe of great masses of rock upon which it would be quite
impossible to haul up a boat.

As the two craft drew close together it became increasingly doubtful
whether we should be able to avoid the boat unless by the adoption of
some especial measures, and at length I saw that when the time should
arrive for us to heave in stays our pursuers would have actually cut us
off. I therefore stood on until we had arrived within about a hundred
yards of them, by which time they were dead ahead of us, and lying upon
their oars, waiting for us to endeavour to pass them, when I calmly put
the brig's helm hard up, instead of down, and we wore round on the other
tack, going back over pretty nearly the same ground that we had
traversed a few minutes before, to the intense disgust and
disappointment of Juan and his companions, who had evidently quite made
up their minds that they had us fairly caught. The moment that our
manoeuvre had so far developed as to be understood, the occupants of the
boat sent up a yell of execration, and began to shout all manner of
dreadful threats at us, while they frantically strove to get their crazy
boat round in order to come after us in chase. But it soon became
apparent that, the boat being in a waterlogged condition, and the
oarsmen almost worn out with fatigue, our pursuers had not a ghost of a
chance of overtaking us. They, as well as we, recognised this when it
was all but too late. Then it dawned upon them that we might evade them
with the utmost ease, for practically as long as we chose, by simply
repeating our last manoeuvre until their boat should sink under them--an
event, by the way, which they could not much longer defer. After
pursuing us, therefore, for nearly a mile, they suddenly abandoned the
chase, and, turning the boat's head in the direction of the wharf,
devoted their efforts to the successful accomplishment of their return.
We did not wait to see how they fared, but, as soon as they were fairly
out of our way, tacked again, and half an hour later found ourselves
fully employed in negotiating the exceedingly difficult navigation of
the narrows, which we successfu