The sails had been furled in the morning watch, and off the cape the course had been changed to south-west.
Just before eight bells in the afternoon watch, when the ship was making fifteen knots an hour, the lookout man on the top-gallant forecastle called out "Sail, ho!" and all eyes were directed ahead.
"Where away ?" demanded the officer of the deck sharply.
"Close on the lee bow, sir!" returned the lookout.
The commander was in his cabin studying the chart of the coast of North Carolina; but the report was promptly sent to him, and he hastened on deck.
"Another sail on the port bow, sir!" shouted a seaman who had been sent to the fore cross trees with a spy-glass.
"What are they ?" asked Christy, maintaining his dignity in spite of the excitement which had begun to invade his being.
"Both steamers, sir," replied the officer of the deck.
"The head one is a blockade-runner, I know by the cut of her jib, sir," shouted the man with the glass on the cross trees.
All the glasses on board were immediately directed to the two vessels.
Christy could plainly make out the steamer that had the lead.

She was a piratical-looking craft, setting very low in the water, with two smoke stacks, both raking at the same angle as her two masts.

The wind was not fair, and she could not carry sail; but the "bone in her teeth" indicated that she was going through the water at great speed.
"A gun from the chaser, sir!" shouted the man aloft.
The cloud of smoke was seen, and the report of the gun reached the ears of all on board the St.Regis.
"There is no mistaking what all that means, Mr.Baskirk," said Christy when he had taken in the situation.
At the first announcement of the sail ahead, the commander had ordered the chief engineer to get all the speed he could out of the ship.

The smoke was pouring out of the smoke stacks, for the St.Regis had two, and presently she indicated what was going on in the fire room by beginning to shake a little.
"Another sail dead ahead, sir!" called the man on the fore cross trees.
The glasses were directed to the third sail, and she proved to be a steamer, also pursuing the one first seen.

It was soon evident to the observers that the blockade-runner, for the man aloft who had so defined her was entirely correct, was gaining all the time on her pursuers.