Providence!  The religionist quarrels with the philosopher if the latter happen to remove this interposition of a higher power, even so triflingly as by the intervention of secondary agencies, while the biggest rascal dignifies even his success by such phrases as Providential aid!  But it is not surprising men should misunderstand terms, when they make such sad confusion in the acts which these terms are merely meant to represent.  Spike had his Providence as well as a priest, and we dare say he often counted on its succour, with quite as rational grounds of dependence as many of the pharisees who are constantly exclaiming, “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these.”

Sail was made on board the Swash with great rapidity, and the brig made a bold push at the Stepping-Stones.  Spike was a capital pilot.  He insisted if he could once gain sight of the spar that was moored on those rocks for a buoy, he should run with great confidence.  The two lights were of great assistance, of course; but the revenue vessel could see these lights as well as the brig, and she, doubtless, had an excellent pilot on board.  By the time the studding-sails were set on board the Swash, the steamer was aweigh, and her long line of peculiar sails became visible.  Unfortunately for men who were in a hurry, she lay so much within the bluff as to get the wind scant, and her commander thought it necessary to make a stretch over to the southern shore, before he attempted to lay his course.  When he was ready to tack, an operation of some time with a vessel of her great length, the Swash was barely visible in the obscurity, gliding off upon a slack bowline, at a rate which nothing but the damp night air, the ballast-trim of the vessel, united to her excellent sailing qualities, could have produced with so light a breeze.

The first half hour took the Swash completely out of sight of the steamer.  In that time, in truth, by actual superiority in sailing, by her greater state of preparation, and by the distance saved by a bold navigation, she had gained fully a league on her pursuer.  But, while the steamer had lost sight of the Swash, the latter kept the former in view, and that by means of a signal that was very portentous.  She saw the light of the steamer’s chimneys, and could form some opinion of her distance and position.

It was about eleven o’clock when the Swash passed the light at Sands’ Point, close in with the land.  The wind stood much as it had been.  If there was a change at all, it was half a point more to the southward, and it was a little fresher.  Such as it was, Spike saw he was getting, in that smooth water, quite eight knots out of his craft, and he made his calculations thereon.  As yet, and possibly for half an hour longer, he was gaining, and might hope to continue to gain on the steamer.  Then her turn would come.  Though no great traveller, it was not to be expected that, favoured by smooth water and the breeze, her speed would be less than ten knots, while there was no hope of increasing his own without an increase of the wind.  He might be five miles in advance, or six at the most; these six miles would be overcome in three hours of steaming, to a dead certainty, and they might possibly be overcome much sooner.  It was obviously necessary to resort to some other experiment than that of dead sailing, if an escape was to be effected.