.

"Now's our time to fill, Miles, and draw ahead. The Speedy will think
we've been spoken, and all's right. She must come here to tack into her
consort's wake, and a blind man could not avoid reading our name--she
would be so close. Man the lee-braces, and right the helm, Neb."

Fill we did; and what is more, we put our helm up so much, as to leave
quite a cable's-length between us and the Speedy, when that ship got far
enough ahead to tack, or at the point which we had just left. I believe we
were recognised! Indeed, it is not easy to imagine otherwise; as the
commonest glass would enable the dullest eyes to read our name, were other
means of recognition wanting. But a sailor knows a ship by too many signs
to be easily deceived.

The Speedy was in stays when we saw the proofs of our being known. Her
head-yards were not swung, but there she lay, like one who lingers,
uncertain whether to go or to remain. An officer was in her gangway,
examining us with a glass; and when the ship fell off so much as to bring
us out of the range of sight, he ran off and reappeared on the taffrail.
This was the junior lieutenant; I could plainly recognise him with my own
glass. Others soon joined him, and among them was Lord Harry Dermond,
himself. I fancied they even knew me, and that all their glasses were
levelled directly at my face. What a moment of intense uncertainty was
that! The ships were not a quarter of a mile apart, though the Dawn was
increasing that distance fast, and by paying broad off, the Speedy would
have me under her broadside. Where was her prize crew I Not in the Dawn,
or certainly Sennit would have communicated with his commander; and, if
not in the ship, they must be in the ocean! Or, were they prisoners below
and kept purposely out of sight? All these thoughts must have passed
through the minds of the English officers.

I thought we were lost, again, but Providence once more saved us. All this
time the leading English frigate and the two Frenchmen were fast
approaching each other. In a few minutes, they must engage, while the
Speedy was left further and further astern of her consort. At this
critical instant, one of the Frenchmen fired a gun of defiance. That
report seemed to arouse the Speedy as from a trance. Her head-yards came
furiously round, all the officers vanished from her taffrail, and down
went both fore and main-tacks, and to the mast-head rose all three of her
top-gallant-sails. Thus additionally