After some conversation on the subject, the captain ordered me
to brace forward the yards, as far as our studding-sails would allow,
and to luff nearer to the stranger. While the ship was thus changing
her course, the day advanced, and our crew got their breakfast.
As a matter of course, the strange ship, which kept on the same line
of sailing as before, drew ahead of us a little, while we neared her
sensibly. In the course of three hours we were within a league of her,
but well on her lee-quarter. Marble now unhesitatingly pronounced her
to be a Frenchman, there being no such thing as mistaking the
sails. To suppose an Englishman would go to sea with such triangles of
royals, he held to be entirely out of the question; and then he
referred to me to know if I did not remember the brig "we had licked
in the West Indies, last v'y'ge, which had just such r'yals as the
chap up there to windward?" I could see the resemblance, certainly,
and had remarked the same peculiarity in the few French vessels I had
seen.
Under all the circumstances, Captain Williams determined to get on the
weather-quarter of our neighbour, and take a still nearer look at
him. That he was armed, we could see already; and, as near as we could
make out, he carried twelve guns, or just two more than we did
ourselves.
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