he helm while the mainsail sheet was eased
away, and the schooner brought the gentle night breeze that was
still setting from the north and east off the Georgian shore, right
aft, and quietly hoisting her foresail, the two were set wing and
wing, and a sea bird could not have skimmed with a more easy and
graceful motion over the deep waters that glanced beneath her hull,
than she did now. If the steamer had desired she might have
overhauled the schooner, but it would have taken all night to do it
with that leading wind in her favor; and so, after looking towards
the clipper craft with her bows for a moment, the steamer again held
on her course.

"Too swift of wing for that smoke pipe of yours," said one of the
Circassians who had been watching the evolutions of the two crafts
from the shore.

"The steamer has put her helm down and gives it up for it bad job,"
said another, as her black bow came once more to look towards the
port of Anapa.

"She will be off before night sets in, and we shall have the
schooner back again."

This was in fact the policy of those on board the schooner; for no
sooner did she find herself unpursued than she hauled her wind,
jibed her foresail to starboard and looked down, towards the coast
of Asia Minor, until the moon crept up from behind the mountains of
the Caucasus as though it had come from a bath in the Caspian Sea
beyond, when the schooner was closer hauled on the other trick, and
bore up again for the harbor of Anapa.

We have said that the little clipper numbered some hundred tons, but
though her appearance would indicate this to be the case, yet your
thorough-bred sailor would have marked how stiffly she bore so much
top hamper, and would have judged more correctly by the depth of
water that the schooner evidently drew. It was plain that she was
deep and much heavier than she looked. A few sprightly Greek youths,
in their picturesque costume were dispersed here and there in the
waist and on the forecastle, while two or three persons wearing the
same dress and evidently of that nation, were talking together in a
group upon the weather-side of the quarter-deck.

As the hours drew towards midnight, the schooner at length opened
communication with the land by means of signal lanterns, and
immediately after boats commenced to ply between the clipper and the
shore, and continued to do so for several hours. It was plain enough
to any one who knew the usages and trade of these water