-not side by side, but one in the wake of the
other.

Is it a chase? To all appearance, yes; a probability strengthened by
the relative size and character of the vessels. One is a barque,
polacca-masted, her masts raking back with the acute shark's-fin set
supposed to be characteristic of piratical craft. The other is a ship,
square-rigged and full sized; a row of real, not painted, ports, with a
gun grinning out of each, proclaiming her a man-of-war.

She is one--a frigate, as any seaman would say, after giving her a
glance. And any landsman might name her nationality. The flag at her
peak is one known all over the world: it is the ensign of England.

If it be a chase, she is the pursuer. Her colours might be accepted as
surety of this, without regard to the relative position of the vessels;
which show the frigate astern, the polacca leading.

The latter also carries a flag--of nationality not so easily determined.
Still it is the ensign of a naval power, though one of little note.
The five-pointed white star, solitary in a blue field, proclaims it the
standard of Chili.

Why should an English frigate be chasing a Chilian barque? There is no
war between Great Britain and this, the most prosperous of the South
American republics; instead, peace-treaties, with relations of the most
amicable kind. Were the polacca showing colours blood-red, or black,
with death's-head and cross-bones, the chase would be intelligible. But
the bit of bunting at her masthead has nothing on its field either of
menace or defiance. On the contrary, it appeals to pity, and asks for
aid; for it is an ensign reversed--in short, a _signal of distress_.

And yet the craft so signalling is on the scud before a stiff breeze,
with all sail set, stays taut, not a rope out of place!

Strange this. So is it considered by every one aboard the man-of-war,
from the captain commanding to the latest joined "lubber of a
landsman"--a thought that has been in their minds ever since the chase
commenced.

For it _is_ a chase: that is, the frigate has sighted a sail, and stood
towards it. This without changing course; as, when first espied, the
stranger, like herself, was running before the wind. If slowly, the
pursuer has, nevertheless, been gradually forging nearer the pursued;
till at length the telescope tells the latter to be a barque--at the
same time revealing her ensign reversed.

Nothing strange in this, of itself; unfortunately, a si