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it; still it pays no attention, but keeps straight on. The captain orders a ball to be fired across her bows, which explodes so near as to splash great jets of water over them. Her crew and captain strike sail, and let go halliards, while they fly behind masts, down cockpit, or wherever they can get for safety. Finding no further harm is meant than to bring them to, they answer back our hail--say they are going to Beaufort, quite a different direction from the one they are heading--and seem generally confused. As an excuse they say their compass is out of order, and as they appear to be wreckers, we allow them to go on without further molestation, and steam back to our moorings, consoling ourselves by the fact that these bootless chases are using up coal, and thereby hastening the time of our going to Beaufort to coal up, where we shall have a chance to step once more on _terra firma_. Another night passes, and there are no indications of runners having tried to escape us; but at sunrise we see, far to the south, a schooner, and soon the flagship signals that a prize has been taken by one of our fleet. It looks very much like the schooner we let go yesterday, and our head officers swear, if it _is_ that schooner, never to let another go so easily. One declares the vessel is loaded with cotton, and worth at least $100,000, but that, notwithstanding, he will sell his share for $500 in good gold. No one bids so high. Our ensign offers his for one dollar, and the paymaster sells his to the surgeon for fifty cents, the magnificence of which bargain the latter learns from the captain, who says his share will be about seven and a half cents! We steam alongside, and learn that our prize is the schooner St. George, bound for Wilmington, via the Bermudas, with a cargo of salt, saltpetre, etc., and worth perhaps four thousand dollars. We send our prize list on board the flagship, and have a nice chat over the capture. It puts us in good humor, and our vessels _chassee_ around each other till afternoon, when we separate, to hear shortly that the schooner, on being searched, has disclosed rich merchandise, gold, Whitworth guns, &c., hidden under her nominal cargo of salt. So hurra again for our prize list! This _almost_ makes up for the loss of the steamer. As we are on the point of letting go our anchor, the distant boom of cannon is heard, and the flagship orders us to repair to the seat of danger with all speed. We haste away
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