"It's an English frigate, and not a doubt of it, sir, and rising very fast." "I thought so.

Man the weather braces! Up with the helm! Bear a hand now, my hearties! Now, then, all together! Brace in!" He himself set a good example to the short crew, who hastened to obey his rapid commands, by assisting the two seamen stationed aft to brail in the spanker, in which labor he was speedily joined by Talbot, who had come on deck.

Young Wilton and Bentley lent the same assistance forward, and in an astonishingly brief time, considering her small crew, the Mellish, like the stranger, was going free with the wind on her quarter, her best point of sailing, her course now making a wide obtuse angle with that of the approaching ship.
"Now, then, men, lay aloft, and shake the reefs out of the topsails.
Stand by to loose the fore and main topgallantsails as well." "Why, what's wrong, Seymour ?" said Talbot, in surprise.

"I rather expected we should be in Massachusetts Bay this evening, and here we are, heading south again.

Isn't that Cape Cod,--that blue haze yonder?
Why are we leaving it?
What's the matter ?" "Take the glass, man; there, aft on the starboard quarter, a sail! You should be able to see her from the deck now.