way across our bows and so get before the wind, when, of course, the
cloud of studding-sails that her rig allowed would afford her a very
important advantage over the schooner. But I was not going to permit
that if I could help it, and it soon became perfectly clear that we
could, the schooner having the heels of the ship, although we were soon
under the lee of the latter, with her sails partially becalming ours.
At length, finding that we could outsail the Indiaman, I luffed close in
under her lee and hailed, in the best Spanish that I could muster--

"Ho, the ship ahoy! Heave-to, and strike, sir, to His Britannic
Majesty's schooner _Tern_!"

The only reply to this was a rattling volley of musketry, evidently
aimed at me as I stood on the weather rail, just abaft the main rigging,
for I heard the bullets whistling all round my head.

"If you don't heave-to, sir," I exclaimed angrily, "by heaven, I will
fire into and sink you!"

"Schooner ahoy! who are you?" now came a hail, in very indifferent
English, from the ship; and in the dim starlight I could just make out
the shape of a shadowy figure standing by the mizzen rigging.

"This schooner, sir, is His Britannic Majesty's schooner _Tern_, as I
have already had the honour to inform you. Do you intend to heave-to,
sir, or will you compel me to fire into you?" I retorted, in English
this time.

The figure vanished from the lee rail of the ship without making any
reply to my question; and, annoyed at being treated in this curious
fashion, I turned my face inward and shouted--

"Let her go off a little, Mr Lindsay,--just far enough to enable us to
fire at his rigging,--and then see whether a broadside will bring the
fellow to his senses."

I leapt down off the rail, and turned to walk aft, when the figure
suddenly popped into view again aboard the Indiaman, and shouted--

"No, no, senor; do not fire, for the love of God! We have several
ladies aboard here, and I will surrender, rather than that they should
be hurt! I surrender, sir, I surrender!"

And the next instant I heard the same voice shouting, in Spanish, an
order for the crew to lay aft and back the mainyard.

As the broad mainsail of the ship collapsed and shrivelled into massive
festoons to the hauling of the crew upon the clew-garnets, buntlines,
and leech-lines, preparatory to backing the maintopsail, we too
shortened sail in readiness to heave-to at the same moment as the prize;
and five minu