ere that waxing moon had
materially waned.

And turn up she did, shortly after midnight on the fifth night following
our arrival upon our cruising ground. The moon was by that time
approaching her second quarter, was well above the horizon by sunset,
and was affording enough light to enable us to distinguish the rig and
chief characteristics of a vessel eight miles away. To my very great
gratification it was the look-out aboard the _Dolphin_ who first sighted
her, she being at that time hull-down in the south-western quarter and
reaching athwart our hawse on the starboard tack; thus as the _Eros_ and
ourselves were hove-to, also on the starboard tack, she rapidly neared
us. At first the only thing that we could clearly distinguish was that
she was a full-rigged ship--as were the _Virginia_ and the _Preciosa_--
but, even so, there were certain details connected with her rig which,
while not being exactly peculiar, corresponded with similar details
referred to in the description of the two notorious slavers, as
ascertained by Captain Perry; I therefore made a lantern signal to the
_Eros_--under the shelter of our mainsail, so that the stranger to
leeward might not see our lights and take the alarm--calling attention
to the fact that there was a suspicious sail in sight to the south-west;
and this signal was simply acknowledged without comment. But I saw that
almost immediately afterwards the _Eros_ swung her main-yard, boarded
her fore and main tacks, and hauled to the wind with the object, of
course, of preventing the strange sail from working out to windward of
us; and a few minutes later I got a signal from the commodore
instructing me to remain hove-to for the present, and, later, to act as
circumstances might require.

The stranger was under all plain sail, to topgallantsails, and was
slipping through the water like a witch; but I had very little fear of
her outsailing the _Eros_, for, fast as that ship had been when she
first fell into our hands, the skipper had improved her speed on a wind
nearly a knot, merely by a careful readjustment of the ballast; and now
she fully justified my faith in her by handsomely holding her own, and
perhaps rather more, but this I could scarcely judge, for since we
remained hove-to, the others rapidly drew away from us.

I waited with what patience I could muster until the stranger had worked
out to a position some five miles ahead of us, and two points on our lee
bow, and the