Le Compte, though that
officer, as I afterwards learned, had distinguished himself in command
of a lugger-privateer, in the British Channel. Our progress was
generally from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty miles in
twenty-four hours; and so it continued to be for the first ten days,
or the period, when, according to our own calculations, we ought to be
near the Crisis, had that vessel steered a course resembling our
own. For my own part, I neither wished nor expected to see the ship,
until we reached the coast of South America, when we might ascertain
her position by communicating with the shore. As for the
_guarda-costas_, I knew we could easily elude them, and there
might be a small chance of regaining the vessel, something like the
way in which we had lost her. But Marble's impatience, and the
keenness with which he felt our disgrace, would not make terms even
with the elements; and I do believe, he would have run alongside of
the Crisis in a gale of wind, could he have come up with her. The
chance of our having sailed so far, however, on a line so nearly
resembling that of the chase as to bring us together, was so very
small, that few of us thought it worth our consideration.
On the morning of the eleventh day, the look-out we had kept on the
fore-top-sail-yard, sang out "Sail-ho!" Marble and myself were soon on
the yard, there being nothing visible from the deck.
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