of them sugar-hogsheads, a very fair balance was struck between him and a peddling Yankee who was breeding trouble for the estate; and I challenge, even at this distant day, when all near interests in the results may be said to sleep, any responsible man to say that they did not look as much like those articles as any thing else.  Something they must have been, and as Kobus dealt largely in sugar, there was also a strong moral probability that they were the said hogsheads.  Come, come, Patroon; we shall have the jade back again, in proper time.  Thy ardor gets the better of reason; but this is the way with true love, which is none the worse for a little delay Alida is not one to balk thy merriment; these Norman wenches are not heavy of foot at a dance, or apt to go to sleep when the fiddles are stirring!”

With this consolation, Alderman Van Beverout saw fit to close the dialogue, for the moment.  How far he succeeded in bringing back the mind of the Patroon to its allegiance, the result must show; though we shall take this occasion to observe again, that the young proprietor found a satisfaction in the excitement of the present scene, that, in the course of a short and little diversified life, he had never before experienced.

While others slept, Ludlow passed most of the night on deck.  He laid himself down in the hammock-cloths, for an hour or two, towards morning though the wind did not sigh through the rigging louder than common, without arousing him from his slumbers.  At each low call of the officer of the watch to the crew, his head was raised to glance around the narrow horizon; and the ship never rolled heavily without causing him to awake.  He believed that the brigantine was near, and, for the first watch, he was not without expectation that the two vessels might unexpectedly meet in the obscurity.  When this hope failed, the young seaman had recourse to artifice, in his turn, in order to entrap one who appeared so practised and so expert in the devices of the sea.

About midnight, when the watches were changed, and the whole crew, with the exception of the idlers, were on deck, orders were given to hoist out the boats.  This operation, one of exceeding toil and difficulty in lightly-manned ships, was soon performed on board the Queen’s cruiser, by the aid of yard and stay-tackles, to which the force of a hundred seamen was applied.  When four of these little attendants on the ship were in the water, they were entered by their crews, prepared for serious service.  Officers, on whom Ludlow could rely, were put in command of the three smallest, while he took charge of the fourth in person.  When all were ready, and each inferior had received his especial instructions, they quitted the side of the vessel, pulling off, in diverging lines, into the gloom of the ocean.  The boat of Ludlow had not gone fifty fathoms, before he was perfectly conscious of the inutility of a chase; for the obscurity of the night was so great, as to render the spars of his own ship nearly indistinct, even at that short distance.  After pulling by compass some ten or fifteen minutes, in a direction that carried him to windward of the Coquette, the young man commanded the crew to cease rowing, and prepared himself to await, patiently, for the result of his undertaking.