mong us we let her slip past in the darkness of the early part of the
last watch, and so I missed the opportunity of speaking her. But I
believe I know her; and if my surmise as to her identity proves correct,
I think I shall have no difficulty in persuading her skipper to transfer
his cargo to me, and so save me the trouble and risk of returning to the
coast for one--a risk which was every day growing greater as we drew
nearer to the ground haunted by your lynx-eyed cruisers, to fall in with
one of which just now, with those niggers down in the hold, would mean
our inevitable condemnation, as I need scarcely tell you."

"Quite so," I assented. "But should you fail to overtake yonder craft,
you will lose a good deal of ground, will you not?"

"Oh, we shall overhaul her, if she be the brig I believe her to be, and
I have very little doubt upon that point," answered Mendouca. "She is a
smart craft, I admit, but the _Francesca_ can beat her upon any point of
sailing, and in any breeze that blows; and, that being the case, the
distance that we may have to run to leeward before getting alongside her
is a matter of indifference to me, since it will be so much of our
voyage accomplished."

"Have you gained anything on her since you bore up in chase?" I asked.

"About a couple of miles, I should think. But then the wind has been
light with us until within the last hour. If this breeze holds I expect
to be alongside her about four bells in the afternoon watch."

"By which time we shall have run close upon seventy miles to leeward," I
remarked.

"Nearer eighty," observed Mendouca. "We are going close upon thirteen
now. But, as I said before, that does not trouble me in the least,
since we shall be that much nearer Cuba."

This was serious news to me, for Cuba was about the last place that I
desired to visit, at least on board the _Francesca_, for I foresaw that
if once we got over there the difficulty of effecting my escape from the
accursed craft would be very greatly increased; indeed, I had quite
reckoned upon her being fallen in with and captured by one of our
cruisers, either while standing in for a fresh cargo of slaves, or when
coming out again with them on board, to which chance alone could I look
with any reason for the prospect of deliverance from my present
embarrassing and disagreeable situation. True, there was just a
possibility of our being picked up by one of the West Indian squadron;
but I had not