as little doubt. She was a
merchantman of considerable tonnage. However, as yet she showed no
ensign at her peak by which her nation might be known. She was
pronounced to be Dutch, French, Danish, and Spanish in turn. At last
the captain thought of sending for some of the prisoners to give their
opinion on the subject. The Spaniards did not take long before they
declared their belief that she was one of the convoy to which they
belonged, and if they were not mistaken she was very richly laden.

A scarcely suppressed shout ran round the decks as the fact became
known.

"Ay, but we've not got her yet," observed Hardman.

Both captain and crew looked as if they wished they could urge on the
frigate by means more potent than the light breeze then blowing. What
plans and projects might not even then have been working in that fertile
brain! Still the chase did her best to escape.

"She has something to run for, or she would have given in before this,"
observed the captain, rapidly walking up and down the deck, and eyeing
his anticipated prize. "Her violent efforts to escape is a good sign,
at all events."

There was now no longer any doubt as to the character of the chase, for
she hoisted the Spanish flag, though she still held on. That she could
escape seemed impossible, and Lord Claymore was unwilling to fire, for
fear of damaging her, not in consequence of tenderness towards her, but
because he hoped in a short time that she would become his property.

"Perhaps she has some notion that she will haul aft her sheets and
escape to windward of us," observed the master.

"Not at all likely that she will make so hopeless an attempt," answered
Morton.

"No; but what do you say to the fellows blowing themselves up," put in
Hardman. "There's many a slip between the cup and the lip; it is the
only way by which they can disappoint us, unless they heave their cargo
overboard, which they may have done already, by-the-by."

His brother officers, as usual, laughed at Hardman's prognostications.
At length the frigate got the chase directly under her guns, when,
instead of making the slightest attempt to escape, she hauled down her
flag, and heaving-to, waited to be taken possession of. This was done
as soon as a boat could be lowered from the frigate; Morton went in her,
and Evans the mate, who spoke Spanish, accompanied him. He stepped on
board the prize. She was a handsome ship, and from her very appearance
Morto