The wind was freshening every moment, and there was the promise of a gale in the lowering sky of the gray afternoon.

The ship felt the increased pressure from the additional sail which had been made, and her speed had materially increased, though she rolled and pitched frightfully, wallowing through the water and smashing into the waves with her broad, fat bows, and making rather heavy weather of it.

In spite of all this, however, the chase gained slowly upon them, until she was now visible to the naked eye from the decks of the Mellish.

Seymour, full of anxiety, tried every expedient that his thorough seamanship and long experience could dictate to accelerate the speed of his ship,--rather a sluggish vessel at best, and now, heavily laden, slower than ever.

The stream anchors were cut away, and then one of the bowers also; all the boats, save one, the smallest, were scuttled and cast adrift; purchases were got on all the sheets and halliards, and the sails hauled flat as boards, and kept well wetted down; some of the water tanks were pumped out, to alter the trim and lighten her; the bulwarks and rails partly cut away, and, as a final resort, the maintopmast studdingsail was set, but the boom broke at the iron and the whole thing went adrift in a few moments.