"Yes, I've been watching it," was Wolf Larsen's calm reply. He measured
the distance away to the fog-bank, and for an instant paused to feel the
weight of the wind on his cheek. "We'll make it, I think; but you can
depend upon it that blessed brother of mine has twigged our little game
and is just a-humping for us. Ah, look at that!"

The blot of smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black.

"I'll beat you out, though, brother mine," he chuckled. "I'll beat you
out, and I hope you no worse than that you rack your old engines into
scrap."

When we hove to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. The boats
came aboard from every side at once. As fast as the prisoners came over
the rail they were marshalled forward to the forecastle by our hunters,
while our sailors hoisted in the boats, pell-mell, dropping them anywhere
upon the deck and not stopping to lash them. We were already under way,
all sails set and drawing, and the sheets being slacked off for a wind
abeam, as the last boat lifted clear of the water and swung in the
tackles.

There was need for haste. The _Macedonia_, belching the blackest of
smoke from her funnel, was charging down upon us from out of the
north-east. Neglecting the boats that remained to her, she had altered
her course so as to anticipate ours. She was not running straight for
us, but ahead of us. Our courses were converging like the sides of an
angle, the vertex of which was at the edge of the fog-bank. It was
there, or not at all, that the _Macedonia_ could hope to catch us. The
hope for the _Ghost_ lay in that she should pass that point before the
_Macedonia_ arrived at it.

Wolf Larsen was steering, his eyes glistening and snapping as they dwelt
upon and leaped from detail to detail of the chase. Now he studied the
sea to windward for signs of the wind slackening or freshening, now the
_Macedonia_; and again, his eyes roved over every sail, and he gave
commands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come in on one there a
trifle, till he was drawing out of the _Ghost_ the last bit of speed she
possessed. All feuds and grudges were forgotten, and I was surprised at
the alacrity with which the men who had so long endured his brutality
sprang to execute his orders. Strange to say, the unfortunate Johnson
came into my mind as we lifted and surged and heeled along, and I was
aware of a regret that he was not alive and present; he had so loved the
_Ghost_ and deligh