At this critical instant the frigate, which saw what passed, but which had been deceived like all the rest, and supposed the lugger was hauling into the haven, tacked and came round with her head to the westward.

But intending to fetch well into the bay, she had stretched so far over toward the eastern shore as, by this time, to be quite two miles distant; and as the lugger rounded the promontory close under its rocks, to avoid the shot of the batteries above, she left, in less than five minutes, her enemy that space directly astern.

Nor was this all.

It would have been dangerous to fire as well as useless, on account of the range, since the lugger lay nearly in a line between her enemy's chase guns and the residence of the vice-governatore.

It only remained, therefore, for the frigate to commence what is proverbially "a long chase," viz.