The “Royal Caroline” seemed, like her crew, sensible of the necessity of increasing her speed.  As she felt the pressure of the broad sheets of canvas that had just been distended, the ship bowed lower, and appeared to recline on the bed of water which rose under her lee nearly to the scuppers.  On the other side, the dark planks, and polished copper, lay bare for many feet, though often washed by the waves that came sweeping along her length, green and angrily, still capped, as usual, with crests of lucid foam.  The shocks, as the vessel tilted against the billows, were becoming every moment more severe; and, from each encounter, a bright cloud of spray arose, which either fell glittering on the deck, or drove, in brilliant mist, across the rolling water, far to leeward.

Wilder long watched the ship, with an excited mien, but with all the intelligence of a seaman.  Once or twice, when she trembled, and appeared to stop, in her violent encounter with a wave, as suddenly as though she had struck a rock, his lips severed, and he was about to give the order to reduce the sail; but a glance at the misty looking image on the western horizon seemed ever to cause his mind to change its purpose.  Like a desperate adventurer, who had cast his fortunes on some hazardous experiment, he appeared to await the issue with a resolution that was as haughty as it was unconquerable.

“That topmast is bending like a whip,” muttered the careful Earing, at his elbow.

“Let it go; we have spare spars to put in its place,” was the answer.

“I have always found the ‘Caroline’ leaky after she has been strained by driving her against the sea.”

“We have our pumps.”

“True, sir; but, in my poor judgment, it is idle to think of outsailing a craft that the devil commands if he does not altogether handle it.”

“One will never know that, Mr Earing, till he tries.”

“We gave the Dutchman a chance of that sort; and, I must say, we not only had the most canvas spread, but much the best of the wind:  And what good did it all do? there he lay, under his three topsails driver, and jib; and we, with studding sails alow and aloft, couldn’t alter his bearing a foot.”

“The Dutchman is never seen in a northern latitude.”

“Well, I cannot say he is,” returned Earing, in a sort of compelled resignation; “but he who has put that flyer off the Cape may have found the cruise so profitable, as to wish to send another ship into these seas.”

Wilder made no reply.  He had either humoured the superstitious apprehension of his mate enough, or his mind was too intent on its principal object, to dwell longer on a foreign subject.

Notwithstanding the seas that met her advance, in such quick succession as greatly to retard her progress the Bristol trader had soon toiled her way through a league of the troubled element.  At every plunge she took, the bow divided a mass of water, that appeared, at each instant, to become more vast and more violent in its rushing; and more than once the struggling hull was nearly buried forward, in some wave which it had equal difficulty in mounting or penetrating.