ailing-master drew a tobacco-box from his pocket, and
removing a coil of pig-tail, he came to a deposit of memorandums, that
vied with the weed itself in colors. "Now, gentlemen," he continued, "you
shall have her build, as justly as if the master-carpenter had laid it
down with his rule. 'Remember to bring a muff of marten's fur from
America, for Mrs. Trysail--buy it in London, and swear'--this is not the
paper--I let your boy, Mr. Luff, stow away the last entry of tobacco for
me, and the young dog has disturbed every document I own. This is the way
the government accounts get jammed, when Parliament wants to overhaul
them. But I suppose young blood will have its run! I let a monkey into a
church of a Saturday night myself, when a youngster, and he made such
stowage of the prayer-books, that the whole parish was by the ears for six
months; and there is one quarrel between two old ladies, that has not been
made up to this hour.--Ah! here we have it:--'Skimmer of the
Seas.--Full-rigged forward, with fore-and-aft mainsail, abaft; a
gaff-top-sail; taut in his spars, with light top-hamper; neat in his gear,
as any beauty--Carries a ring-tail in light weather; main-boom like a
frigate's top-sail-yard, with a main-top-mast-stay-sail as big as a jib.
Low in the water, with a woman figure-head; carries sail more like a devil
than a human being, and lies within five points, when jammed up hard on a
wind.' Here are marks by which one of Queen Anne's maids of honor might
know the rogue; and there you see them all, as plainly as human nature can
show them in a ship!"

"The Skimmer of the Seas!" repeated the young officers, who had crowded
round the veteran tar, to hear this characteristic description of the
notorious free-trader.

"Skimmer or flyer, we have him now, dead under our lee, with a sandy beach
on three of his sides, and the wind in his eye!" cried the
first-lieutenant.

"You shall have an opportunity, Master Trysail, of correcting your
account, by actual measurement."

The sailing-master shook his head, like one who doubted, and again turned
his eye on the approaching cloud.

The Coquette, by this time, had run so far as to have the entrance of the
Cove open; and she was separated from her object, only by a distance of a
few cables'-length. In obedience to an order given by Ludlow, all the
light canvas of the ship was taken in, and the vessel was left under her
three top-sails and gib. There remained, however, a que