agger under; and what she can't carry she must drag." And we sprang to
make sail, briskly as apes, and every one working with two-man power. I
knew the old _Boca's_ best point; it was with the wind a point abaft the
beam; we put her to that, got the great square-sail on her, shook out
all reefs, and gave all she had to the wind. The wake roared away from
her like a white torrent that flies from the foot of a foaming cataract.
She had the pirate's instincts, and being put to her trumps, was nimble.
God! how she did swing through it! Never had I driven the aged bucket
before like this, and I understood that speed at sea is not
irreconcilable with odd bodies. But the great ship to windward hung
steady; a cloud of bland and swelling cloths. When we had set the
studding-sail we had nothing more to fly with; and so we stood looking.
She slapped six shots at us, one after another, as a haughty hint to us
to stop; but we meant to escape, and at last we did, outsailing her by
thirteen inches to her foot--one foot to her twelve--though she stuck to
our skirts the whole afternoon and kept us in an agony of anxiety.

The sun was setting when she abandoned us: she was then some five or six
miles distant on our weather quarter. What her nation was I did not
know; but Wilkinson reckoned her French when she gave us up. We rushed
steadily along the same course into the darkness of the night and then,
shortening sail, brought the schooner to the wind again, after which we
drank to the frisky old jade in an honestly-earned bowl.

It was on the 5th of December that we sighted the Scilly Isles. I
guessed what that land was, but so vague had been my navigation that I
durst not be sure; until, spying a smack with her nets over, I steered
for her and got the information I needed from her people. They answered
us with an air of fear, and in truth the fellows had reason; for,
besides the singular appearance of the ship, the four of us were
apparelled in odds and ends of the antique clothes, and I have little
doubt they considered us lunatics of another country, who had run away
with a ship belonging to parts where the tastes and fashions were behind
the age.

Now, as you may suppose, by this time I had settled my plans; and as we
sailed up channel, I unfolded them to my companions. I pointed out that
before we entered the river it would be necessary to discharge our
lading into some little vessel that would smuggle the booty ashore for
us. The