The Dawn showed her ensign, as a sign we saw our poor fellows struggling to regain us, and then we filled our main-top-sail, squaring away and standing down directly for the fugitives.  Heavens! how that main-yard went round, though there were but three men at the braces.  Each of us hauled and worked like a giant.  There was every inducement of feeling, interest and security to do so.  With our present force, the ship could scarcely be said to be safe; whereas, the seven additional hands, and they our own people, who were straining every nerve to join us, would at once enable us to carry the ship direct to Hamburg.

Our old craft behaved beautifully.  Neb was at the wheel, the cook on the forecastle, while Marble and I got ropes cleared away to throw to the runaways, as soon as they should be near enough to receive them.  Down we drove towards the boat, and it was time we did, for the cutter in pursuit, which pulled ten oars, and was full manned, was gaining fast on the fugitives.  As we afterwards learned, in the eagerness of starting, our men had shipped the crest of a sea, and they were now labouring under the great disadvantage of carrying more than a barrel of water, which was washing about in the bottom of their cutter, rendering her both heavy and unsteady.

So intense was the interest we all felt in the result of this struggle, that our feelings during the battle could not be compared to it.  I could see Marble move his body, as a sitter in a boat is apt to do, at each jerk of the oars, under the notion it helps the party along.  Diogenes actually called out, and this a dozen times at least, to encourage the men to pull for their lives, though they were not yet within a mile of us.  The constant rising and setting of the boats prevented my making very minute observations with the glass; but I distinguished the face of my second-mate, who was sitting aft, and I could see he was steering with one hand and bailing with the other.  We now waved our hats, in hopes of being seen, but got no answering signal, the distance being still too great.

At that moment I cared nothing for the guns of the English ship, though we were running directly for them.  The boat—­the boat, was our object!  For that we steered as unerringly as the motion of the rolling water would allow.  It blew a good working breeze; and, what was of the last importance to us, it blew steadily.  I fancied the ship did not move, notwithstanding, though the rate at which we drew nearer to the boat ought to have told us better.  But, anxiety had taken the place of reason, and we were all disposed to see things as we felt, rather than as we truly found them.

There was abundant reason for uneasiness; the cutter astern certainly going through the water four feet, to the other’s three.  Manned with her regular crew, with everything in order, and with men accustomed to pull together, the largest boat, and rowing ten oars to the six of my mate’s, I make no doubt that the cutter of the Black Prince would have beaten materially in an ordinary race, more especially in the rough water over which this contest occurred.  But, nearly a tenth full of water, the boat of the fugitives had a greatly lessened chance of escape.