“Where is the ship, sir?  I looked for her most anxiously, without success, last evening; nor had Jack Tier, the little fellow I have named to you, any better luck; though I sent him aloft, as high as the lantern in the light-house, for that purpose.”

“The ship is off here to the northward and westward, some six leagues or so.  At sunset she may have been a little further.  We have supposed that the Swash would be coming back hither, and had laid a trap for her, which came very near taking her alive.”

“What is the trap you mean, sir—­though taking Stephen Spike alive, is sooner said than done.”

“Our plan has been to catch him with our boats.  With the greater draft of water of the Poughkeepsie, and the heels of your brig, sir, a regular chase about these reefs, as we knew from experience, would be almost hopeless.  It was, therefore, necessary to use head-work, and some man-of-war traverses, in order to lay hold of him.  Yesterday afternoon we hoisted out three cutters, manned them, and made sail in them all, under our luggs, working up against the trades.  Each boat took its own course, one going off, the west end of the reef, one going more to the eastward, while I came this way, to look in at the Dry Tortugas.  Spike will be lucky if he do not fall in with our third cutter, which is under the fourth lieutenant, should he stand on far on the same tack as that on which he left this place.  Let him try his fortune, however.  As for our boat, as soon as I saw the lamps burning in the lantern, I made the best of my way hither, and got sight of the brig, just as she loosened her sails.  Then I took in my own luggs, and came on with the oars.  Had we continued under our canvas, with this breeze, I almost think we might have overhauled the rascal.”

“It would have been impossible, sir.  The moment he got a sight of your sails, he would have been off in a contrary direction, and that brig really seems to fly, whenever there is a pressing occasion for her to move.  You did the wisest thing you could have done, and barely missed him, as it was.  He has not seen you at all, as it is, and will be all the less on his guard, against the next visit from the ship.”

“Not seen me!  Why, sir, the fellow fired at us twice with a musket; why he did not use a carronade, is more than I can tell.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Wallace; those two shots were intended for me, though I now fully comprehend why you answered them.”

“Answered them! yes, indeed; who would not answer such a salute, and gun for gun, if he had a chance.  I certainly thought he was firing at us, and having a musket between my legs, I let fly in return, and even the chaplain here will allow that was returning `good for evil.’  But explain your meaning.”

Mulford now went into the details of the incidents connected with his coming into the moon-light, at the foot of the light-house.  That he was not mistaken as to the party for whom the shots were intended, was plain enough to him, from the words that passed aloud among the people of the Swash, as well as from the circumstance that both balls struck the stones of the tower quite near him.  This statement explained everything to Wallace, who now fully comprehended the cause and motive of each incident.