“I thought these bloody cutters were all down in the Gulf,” growled the captain, casting his eyes aloft again, to see that everything drew.  “I’m sure the newspapers have mentioned as many as twenty that are down there, and here is one, lying behind Montauk, like a snake in the grass!”

“At any rate, by the time he gets his boat up we shall get the start of him—­ay, there he fills and falls off, to go and meet her.  He’ll soon be after us, Captain Spike, at racing speed.”

Everything occurred as those two mariners had foreseen.  The revenue cutter, one of the usual fore-top-sail schooners that are employed in that service, up and down the coast, had no sooner hoisted up her boat, than she made sail, a little off the wind, on a line to close with the Swash.  As for the brig, she had hauled up to an easy bowline, as she came round Montauk, and was now standing off south southeast, still having the wind at south-west.  The weatherly position of the cutter enabled her to steer rather more than one point freer.  At the commencement of this chase, the vessels were about a mile and a half apart, a distance too great to enable the cutter to render the light guns she carried available, and it was obvious from the first, that everything depended on speed.  And speed it was, truly; both vessels fairly flying; the Molly Swash having at last met with something very like her match.  Half an hour satisfied both Spike and Mulford that, by giving the cutter the advantage of one point in a freer wind, she would certainly get alongside of them, and the alternative was therefore to keep off.

“A starn chase is a long chase, all the world over,” cried Spike—­“edge away, sir; edge away, sir, and bring the cutter well on our quarter.”

This order was obeyed; but to the surprise of those in the Swash, the cutter did not exactly follow, though she kept off a little more.  Her object seemed to be to maintain her weatherly position, and in this manner the two vessels ran on for an hour longer, until the Swash had made most of the distance between Montauk and Blok Island.  Objects were even becoming dimly visible on the last, and the light on the point was just becoming visible, a lone star above a waste of desert, the sun having been down now fully a quarter of an hour, and twilight beginning to draw the curtain of night over the waters.

“A craft under Blok,” shouted the look-out, that was still kept aloft as a necessary precaution.

“What sort of a craft?” demanded Spike, fiercely; for the very mention of a sail, at that moment, aroused all his ire.  “Arn’t you making a frigate out of an apple-orchard?”

“It’s the steamer, sir.  I can now see her smoke.  She’s just clearing the land, on the south side of the island, and seems to be coming round to meet us.”