ed. "Well, it is a bad job, a very bad business
altogether. I can only hope we may find the crew uninjured on board the
brig when we catch her; but I think it is rather doubtful. Now run away
down into my cabin and tell Baines to give you some dinner. I expect
everything will be cleared away in the ward-room by this."

On descending to the cabin I found that the skipper had been considerate
enough to give orders that a nice little dinner should be ready for me
on my return, and those orders having been carried out to the letter I
was enabled to sit down in peace and enjoy the meal for which the long
pull in the boats had given me a most voracious appetite. The meal
over, it being then my watch below, I turned in.

On relieving Mr Armitage at midnight I found that the weather was still
fine, the wind the merest shade fresher than it had been when I left the
deck, and the chase directly ahead, about twelve miles distant, her
upper canvas showing distinctly in the brilliant rays of the moon. We
had gained upon her about a couple of miles during the four hours I had
been below, and Captain Vernon--who had been on deck during the whole of
the previous watch, and was just about to retire for the night--was in
high spirits, and confident in his belief that, if all went well, we
should make the capture before sunset on the following day. The best
helmsman in my watch was ordered to the wheel. I made a regular tour of
the decks, taking an extra pull at a halliard here, easing off an inch
or so of this brace or that sheet, and, in short, doing everything
possible to increase the speed of the ship, and so my watch passed away;
the _Daphne_ having crept another couple of miles nearer to the chase
during the interval.

Thus matters went on until noon of the following day, when the wind once
more showed symptoms of failing, whilst the sky became overcast,
threatening a change of weather. We had by this time shortened the
distance between ourselves and the chase until a space of only some
seven miles or so separated us, and everybody on board, fore and aft,
was in a fever of impatience to get alongside the brig, which our
glasses had already assured us was none other than the notorious _Black
Venus_. She had already proved herself so slippery a customer that an
almost superstitious feeling had sprung up in our breasts with regard to
her; we felt that however closely we might succeed in approaching her,
however helplessly s