sheltered themselves under the bulwarks, and the vessel
continued her course, with all her sails expanded to the breeze.

A few minutes more and she was right under the bows of the frigate, who
now prepared to round-to, and pour a broadside into her for her
temerity. McElvina watched their motions attentively, and as the
frigate yawed-to with all her sails set, he gave the order to lower
away; and the sails of the lugger were in an instant down on the deck,
in token of submission.

"Helm hard a-lee, now--keep a little bit of the mizen up, Phillips--they
won't observe it."

"Marines, cease firing-hands, shorten sail, and clear away the first
cutter," were the orders given on board the frigate, and distinctly
heard by the smugglers; but the heavy press of sail that the frigate was
obliged to carry to come up with the chase, was not so soon to be
reduced as that of a small vessel--and, as she rounded-to with
studding-sails below and aloft, she shot past the lugger, and left her
on her quarter.

"Now's your time, my men. Hoist away the jib-sheet to windward." The
lugger payed off as the wind caught the sail. "All's right. Up with
the lugs."

The order was obeyed as an order generally is by men working for their
escape from what they most dreaded, poverty and imprisonment; and,
before the frigate could reduce her sails, which were more than she
could carry on a wind, the lugger had shot away on her weather quarter,
and was a quarter of a mile in advance. The frigate tacked after her,
firing gun after gun, but without success. Fortune favoured McElvina;
and the shades of night soon hid the lugger from the sight of her
irritated and disappointed pursuers. A long career was before _La Belle
Susanne_: she was not to be taken that time.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A fisherman he had been in his youth;
But other speculations were, in sooth,
Added to his connection with the sea,
Perhaps not so respectable, in truth,
...
He had an only daughter.
DON JUAN.

Not possessing a prompter's whistle, we must use, as a substitute, the
boatswain's call, and, at his shrill pipe, we change the scene to a back
parlour in one of the most confined streets at the east end of England's
proud and wealthy metropolis. The _dramatis personae_ are an elderly
and corpulent personage, with as little of fashion in his appearance as
in his residence; and a young female of about twenty years of age, with
expressive and beauti