" I heard Smellie return; and the schooner's bows swept round
until they pointed fair for the distant object. "Steady, sir!"

"Steady it is," replied Smellie, his voice sounding weird and mournful
above the roar of the wind and the wash of the sea. I managed to trim
over the jib-sheet without assistance, and then leaned over the bulwarks
watching the gradual way in which the small dark blot on the horizon
swelled and developed into a stately ship with lofty masts, long yards,
and a delicate maze of rigging all as neat and trig as though she had
but just emerged from the dockyard.

The sea being quite smooth after we had once rounded Shark Point, we
made the run down to the sloop in about an hour, passing to windward of
her, and then jibing over and rounding-to on her lee quarter, with our
jib-sheet to windward.

As we approached the sloop I noticed that lights were still burning in
the skipper's cabin, and I thought I could detect a human face or two
peering curiously out at us from the ports. The dear old hooker was of
course riding head to wind, and as we swept down across her bows within
easy hailing distance a figure suddenly appeared standing on the knight-
heads, and Armitage's voice rang out across the water with the hail of:

"Schooner ahoy!"

"Hillo!" responded Smellie.

A slight and barely perceptible pause; and then--

"What schooner is that?"

"The _Josefa_, slave schooner. Is that Mr Armitage?"

"Ay, ay, it is. Who may you be, pray?"

I had by this time gone aft and was standing by Smellie's side. The
schooner was just jibing over and darting along on the _Daphne's_
starboard side.

"Armitage evidently has not recognised my voice as yet," remarked
Smellie, "or else," he added, "they have given us up on board as dead,
and he is unable so suddenly to realise the fact of our being still
alive."

Then, as we finally rounded-to under the _Daphne's_ quarter, Armitage
reappeared aft, and the confab was renewed, Smellie this time taking the
lead.

"_Daphne_ ahoy!" he hailed, "has Captain Vernon yet retired for the
night?"

"I think not," was the reply. "What do you want?"

"Kindly pass the word to him that Mr Smellie and Mr Hawkesley are
alongside in a captured slaver: and say we shall feel greatly obliged if
he will send a prize crew on board us to take possession."

"Ay, ay! I will."

Armitage thereupon disappeared, and, we being at the time to leeward of
the sloop, a slight but dis