prepare for the conflict.

The corvette, after she had rounded to, and exchanged colours, reduced her
sails to precisely the same canvas as that carried by the _Windsor Castle_.
This was to try her rate of sailing. In a quarter of an hour, her
superiority was manifest. She then hauled up her courses, and dropped to
her former position on the _Windsor Castle's_ weather-beam.

"The fellow has the heels of us, at all events," observed Captain Oughton;
"but, Forster, the ladies are not yet below. Mrs Enderby, I am sorry to be
obliged to put you in confinement for a short time. Miss Revel, you must do
me the favour to accept of Mr Forster's convoy below the water-line."

Newton offered his arm to Isabel, and followed Captain Oughton, who
escorted Mrs Enderby. His heart was swelling with such variety of feeling
that he could not at first trust himself to speak. When they had descended
the ladder, and were picking their way, stepping over the rammers, sponges,
and tackles, stretched across the main-deck, Newton observed--"This is not
the first time I have been commissioned to place you in security. I trust I
shall again have the pleasure of relieving you from your bondage."

Isabel's lips quivered as she replied, "I trust in God that you may, Mr
Forster!--but--I feel more anxious now than I did on the former occasion.
I--"

"I have a foreboding," interrupted Newton, "that this day's work is to make
or mar me! Why, I cannot tell, but I feel more confident than the chances
would warrant; but farewell, Isabel--God bless you!"--and Newton, pressing
her hand, sprang up the ladder to his station on the quarter-deck.

I have before observed that a man's courage much depends upon his worldly
means or prospects. A man who has much to lose, whatever the property may
consist of, will be less inclined to fight than another whose whole capital
consists of a "light heart and a thin pair of breeches." Upon the same
reasoning, a man in love will not be inclined to fight as another. Death
then cuts off the sweetest prospects in existence. Lord St Vincent used to
say that a married man was d----d for the service. Now (bating the
honeymoon), I do not agree with his lordship. A man in love may be inclined
to play the Mark Antony; but a married man, "come what will, he has been
blessed." Once fairly into action, it then is of little consequence whether
a man is a bachelor, or married, or in love; the all-absorbing occupation
of killing your fe