first twenty
minutes these oared craft gained on the luggers owing to the absence
of wind, and the smugglers could do nothing. The dawn had revealed the
presence of the _Jackal_ to the smugglers no less than the latter had
been revealed to the gun-brig. And as soon as the illicit carriers
realised what was about to happen they, too, began to make every
effort to get moving. The early morning calm, however, was less
favourable to them than to the comparatively light-oared craft which
had put out from the _Jackal_, so the three luggers just rolled to the
swell under the cliffs of the Foreland as their canvas and gear
slatted idly from side to side.

But presently, as the sun rose up in the sky, a little breeze came
forth which bellowed the lug-sails and enabled the three craft to
stand off from the land and endeavour, if possible, to get out into
the Channel. In order to accelerate their speed the crews laid on to
the sweeps and pulled manfully. Every sailorman knows that the tides
in that neighbourhood are exceedingly strong, but the addition of the
breeze did not improve matters for the _Jackal's_ two boats, although
the luggers were getting along finely. However, the wind on a bright
June morning is not unusually fitful and light, so the boats kept up a
keen chase urged by their respective officers, and after three hours
of strenuous rowing Captain Stewart's boat came up with the first of
these named the _I.O._ But before he had come alongside her and was
still 300 yards away, the master and pilot of this smuggler and six of
her crew was seen to get into the lugger's small boat and row off to
the second lugger named the _Nancy_, which they boarded. When the
_Jackal's_ commander, therefore, came up with the _I.O._ he found only
one man aboard her. He stopped to make some inquiries, and the
solitary man produced some Bills of Lading and other papers to show
that the craft was bound from Emden to Guernsey, and that their cargo
was destined for the latter place.

The reader may well smile at this barefaced and ingenuous lie. Not
even a child could be possibly persuaded to imagine that a vessel
found hovering about the North Foreland was really making for the
Channel Isles from Germany. It was merely another instance of
employing these papers if any awkward questions should be asked by
suspecting Revenue vessels or men-of-war. What was truth, however, was
that the _I.O._ was bound not to but from Guernsey, where she had