“A rogue has a quick wit,” said Trysail, whose critical eye suffered no movement of the chase to escape him; “and he has need of it, sail from what haven he may!  Yon brigantine is prettily handled!  Little have we gained by our fire, but the gunner’s account of ammunition expended; and little has the free-trader lost, but a studding-sail-boom, which will work up very well, yet, into top-gallant-yards, and other light spars, for such a cockle-shell.”

“It is something gained, to force him off the land into rougher water;” Ludlow mildly answered.  “I think we see his quarter-pieces more plainly, than before the gun was used.”

“No doubt, Sir, no doubt.  I got a glimpse of his lower dead-eyes, a minute ago; but I have been near enough to see the saucy look of the hussy under his bowsprit; yet there goes the brigantine, at large!”

“I am certain that we are closing;” thoughtfully returned Ludlow.  “Hand me a glass, quarter master.”

Trysail watched the countenance of his young commander, as he examined the chase with the aid of the instrument; and he thought he read strong discontent in his features, when the other laid it aside.

“Does he show no signs of coming back to his allegiance, Sir?—­or does the rogue hold out in obstinacy?”

“The figure on his poop is the bold man who ventured on board the Coquette, and who now seems quite as much at his ease as when he exhibited his effrontery here!”

“There is a look of deep water about that rogue; and I thought Her Majesty had gained a prize, when he first put foot on our decks.  You are right enough, Sir, in calling him a bold one!  The fellow’s impudence would unsettle the discipline of a whole ship’s company, though every other man were an officer, and all the rest priests.  He took up as much room in walking the quarter-deck, as a ninety in waring; and the truck is not driven on the head of that top-gallant-mast, half as hard as the hat is riveted to his head.  The fellow has no reverence for a pennant!  I managed, in shifting pennants at sunset, to make the fly of the one that came down flap in his impudent countenance, by way of hint; and he took it as a Dutchman minds a signal—­that is, as a question to be answered in the next watch.  A little polish got on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war, would make a philosopher of the rogue, and fit him for any company, short of heaven!”

“There goes a new boom, aloft!” cried Ludlow, interrupting the discursive discourse of the master.  “He is bent on getting in with the shore.”

“If these puffs come much heavier,” returned the master, whose opinions of the chase vacillated with his professional feelings, “we shall have him at our own play, and try the qualities of his brigantine!  The sea has a green spot to windward, and there are strong symptoms of a squall on the water.  One can almost see into the upper world, with an air clear as this.  Your northers sweep the mists off America, and leave both sea and land bright as a school-boy’s face, before the tears have dimmed it, after the first flogging.  You have sailed in the southern seas, Captain Ludlow, I know; for we were shipmates among the islands, years that are past:  but I never heard whether you have run the Gibralter passage, and seen the blue water that lies among the Italy mountains?”