d wearing short round every
twenty minutes; by which plan we were never more than ten minutes sail
from the line over which we expected the enemy to pass.

A careful calculation, based upon our knowledge of the _Black Venus's_
extraordinary sailing powers, showed that we might look for her about
half-past nine o'clock; and half an hour previous to that we began to
make our preparations for according to her a suitable reception. The
decks were cleared for action, the magazine was opened, arms and
ammunition were served out to the crew, who were then sent to quarters;
the guns were loaded each with a round-shot and a charge of grape on the
top of it, and all the canvas was loosed and made ready for setting at a
moment's notice. Then all the sharpest eyes available in the ship were
set upon the watch for our slippery foe, and we were ready.

The night-mists to which frequent reference has been made are, it ought
to be explained, confined to the river itself; and though on such
occasions as that of which we are now treating they are carried out to
seaward by the land-breeze a few miles beyond the river's mouth, they
soon get dissipated; so that whilst in the river itself the fog may be
so thick as to render it impossible to see further than half the ship's
length ahead, it will be perfectly clear at a distance of seven or eight
miles outside. It was just upon the outer or seaward skirts of the fog-
bank that we had taken up our station and were hovering to and fro.

The _Virginia_ had just gone round, and was stretching to the southward
upon the port tack, when, from my station on the heel of the bowsprit, I
thought I detected a sudden thickening of the haze at a spot about three
points on the weather-bow. Straining my eyes to their utmost I gazed
intently into the darkness; the appearance became more pronounced, more
defined every second, and as I watched it assumed the form of an
irregularly-shaped truncated pyramid.

"Sail ho! broad on the weather-bow!" I exclaimed joyously; and in a
moment half a dozen voices exultingly reiterated the cry of "Sail ho!"

Yes, there could be no mistake about it; for whilst the words were still
upon our lips the apparition grew more substantial, assumed the misty
outline of a ship in full sail, and finally shot out from among the fog-
wreaths clear and well-defined--a brig running before the wind under
studding-sails.

I hastened aft to where Smellie stood grasping the maintopmas