By this time the boats were fifty feet asunder.  No sooner was there room, than the periagua once more flew round, and commenced anew its course, dashing in again towards the shore.  It was necessary, however, to venture within an oar’s-length of the cutter, or to keep away,—­a loss of ground to which he who controlled her movements showed no disposition to submit.  The officer arose, and, as the periagua drew near, it was evident his hand held a pistol, though he seemed reluctant to exhibit the weapon.  The mariner stepped aside, in a manner to offer a full view of all in his group, as he sarcastically observed—­

“Choose your object, Sir; in such a party, a man of sentiment may have a preference.”

The young man colored, as much with shame at, the degrading duty he had been commissioned to perform, as with vexation at his failure.  Recovering his self-composure, however, he lifted his hat to la belle Barberie, and the periagua dashed on, in triumph.  Still the leading cutter was near the shore, where it soon arrived, the crew lying on their oars at the end of the wharf, in evident expectation of the arrival of the ferry-boat.  At this sight, the schipper shook his head, and looked up in the bold face of his passenger, in a manner to betray how much his mind misgave the result.  But the tail mariner maintained his coolness, and began to make merry allusions to the service which he had braved with so much temerity, and from which no one believed he was yet likely to escape.  By the former manoeuvres, the periagua had gained a position well to windward of the wharf; and she was now steered close upon the wind, directly for the shore.  Against the consequences of a perseverance in this course, however, the schipper saw fit to remonstrate.

“Shipwrecks and rocky bottoms!” exclaimed the alarmed waterman.  “A Holland galliot would go to pieces, if you should run her in among those stepping-stones, with this breeze!  No honest boatman loves to see a man stowed in a cruiser’s hold, like a thief caged in his prison; but when it comes to breaking the nose of the Milk-Maid, it is asking too much of her owner, to stand by and look on.”

“There shall not be a dimple of her lovely countenance deranged,” answered his cool passenger.  “Now, lower away your sails, and we’ll run along the shore, down to yon wharf.  ’Twould be an ungallant act to treat the dairy-girl with so little ceremony, gentlemen, after the lively foot and quick evolutions she has shown in our behalf.  The best dancer in the island could not have better played her part, though jigging under the music of a three-stringed fiddle!”

By this time the sails were lowered, and the periagua was gliding down towards the place of landing, running always at the distance of some fifty feet from the shore.