considerable elevation, with deep water quite near it; and, under the shadows of that bluff, Spike intended to perform his nicest evolutions.  He saw that the revenue vessel had let her fires go down, and that she was entirely without steam.  Under canvas, he had no doubt of beating her hand over hand, could he once fairly get to windward; and then she was at anchor, and would lose some time in getting under way, should she even commence a pursuit.  It was all important, therefore, to gain as much to windward as possible, before the people of the government vessel took the alarm.

There can be no doubt that the alterations made on board the Swash served her a very good turn on this occasion.  Although the night could not be called positively dark, there was sufficient obscurity to render her hull confused and indistinct at any distance, and this so much the more when seen from the steamer outside, or between her and the land.  All this Spike very well understood, and largely calculated on.  In effect he was not deceived; the look-outs on board the revenue craft could trace little of the vessel that was approaching beyond the spars and sails which rose above the shores, and these seemed to be the spars and sails of a common foretopsail schooner.  As this was not the sort of craft for which they were on the watch, no suspicion was awakened, nor did any reports go from the quarter-deck to the cabin.  The steamer had her quarter watches, and officers of the deck, like a vessel of war, the discipline of which was fairly enough imitated, but even a man-of-war may be overreached on an occasion.

Spike was only great in a crisis, and then merely as a seaman.  He understood his calling to its minutiae, and he understood the Molly Swash better than he understood any other craft that floated.  For more than twenty years had he sailed her, and the careful parent does not better understand the humours of the child, than he understood exactly what might be expected from his brig.  His satisfaction sensibly increased, therefore, as she stole along the land, toward the angle mentioned, without a sound audible but the gentle gurgling of the water, stirred by the stem, and which sounded like the ripple of the gentlest wave, as it washes the shingle of some placid beach.

As the brig drew nearer to the bluff, the latter brought the wind more ahead, as respected the desired course.  This was unfavourable, but it did not disconcert her watchful commander.

“Let her come round, Mr. Mulford,” said this pilot-captain, in a low voice—­“we are as near in as we ought to go.”