proceeding. I was half disposed to let the Leander come up, and send a
boat on board us. What had we to fear? We were bound to Hamburg, with a
cargo, one half of which came from the English, while the other half came
from French islands.--But what of that? Marble, however, would not listen
to such a project. He affirmed that he was a good pilot in all the sounds,
and that it would be better to risk everything, rather than let that fifty
close with us.

"Keep the ship away, for Montauk, sir," exclaimed the mate--"keep her away
for Montauk, and let that chap follow us if he dare! There's a reef or
two, inside, that I'll engage to lead him on, should he choose to try the
game, and that will cure him of his taste for chasing a Yankee."

"Will you engage, Moses, to carry the ship over the shoals, if I will do
as you desire, and go inside?"

"I'll carry her into any port, east of Block Island, Cap tain
Wallingford. Though New York born, as it now turns out, I'm 'down east'
edicated, and have got a 'coasting pilot' of my own in my head."

This settled the matter, and I came to the resolution to stand on.

Chapter XII.

"The wind blows fair, the vessel feels
The pressure of the rising breeze,
And, swiftest of a thousand keels
She leaps to the careering seas--"

Willis.

Half an hour later, things drew near a crisis. We had been obliged to luff
a little, in order to clear a reef that even Marble admitted lay off
Montauk, while the Leander had kept quite as much away, with a view to
close. This brought the fifty so near us, directly on our weather beam, as
to induce her commander to try the virtue of gunpowder. Her bow-gun was
fired, and its shot, only a twelve-pounder, richoched until it fairly
passed our fore-foot, distant a hundred yards, making its last leap from
the water precisely in a line with the stem of the Dawn. This was
unequivocal evidence that the game could not last much longer, unless the
space between the two vessels should be sensibly widened. Fortunately, we
now opened Montauk fort, and the option was offered us of doubling that
point, and entering the sound, or of standing oh towards Block Island, and
putting the result on our heels. After a short consultation with Marble, I
decided on the first.

One of the material advantages possessed by a man-of-war in a chase with a
merchant vessel, is in the greater velocity with which her crew can make
or take in sail. I knew that th