It was far easier to do all that has been described, than to determine on the future course.  Capture was certain if the fugitives ventured into the open water, and their only hope was to remain on the reef.  If channels for the passage of the boat could be found, escape was highly probable, as the schooner’s boat could sail much faster than the brig’s boat could row, fast as Mulford knew the last to be.  But the experience of the morning had told the mate that the rock rose too near the surface, in many places, for the boat, small as it was, to pass over it; and he must trust a great deal to chance.  Away he went, however, standing along a narrow channel, through which the wind just permitted him to lay, with the sail occasionally shaking.

By this time the Swash had her boat in the water, manned with four powerful oars, Spike steering it in his own person.  Our young mate placed Tier in the bows, to point out the deepest water, and kept his sail a rap full, in order to get ahead as fast as possible.  Ahead he did get, but it was on a course that soon brought him out in the open water of the main passage through the reef, leaving Spike materially astern.  The latter now rose in his boat, and made a signal with his hat, which the boatswain perfectly understood.  The latter caused the brig to ware short round on her heel, and boarded his foretack in chase, hauling up into the passage as soon as he could again round the reef.  Mulford soon saw that it would never do for him to venture far from the rocks, the brig going two feet to his one, though not looking quite as high as he did in the boat.  But the Swash had her guns, and it was probable they would be used rather than he should escape.  When distant two hundred yards from the reef, therefore, he tacked.  The new course brought the fugitives nearly at right angles to that steered by Spike, who stood directly on, as if conscious that, sooner or later, such a rencounter must occur.  It would seem that the tide was setting through the passage, for when the boat of Mulford again reached the reef, it was considerably to windward of the channel out of which she had issued, and opposite to another which offered very opportunely for her entrance.  Into this new channel, then, the mate somewhat blindly ran, feeling the necessity of getting out of gun-shot of the brig at every hazard.  She at least could not follow him among the rocks, let Spike, in his boat, proceed as he might.

According to appearances, Spike was not likely to be very successful.  He was obliged to diverge from his course, in order to go into the main passage at the very point where Mulford had just before done the same thing, and pull along the reef to windward, in order to get into the new channel, into which the boat he was pursuing had just entered.  This brought him not only astern again, but a long bit astern, inasmuch as he was compelled to make the circuit described.  On he went, however, as eager in the chase as the hound with his game in view.