“Keep her away at once,” cried Wilder, who was beginning to change the tones of remonstrance for those of command; “keep the ship away, sir, while you have room to do it, or, by the”——­

His lips became motionless; for his eye happened to fall on the pale, speaking, and anxious countenance of Gertrude.

“I believe it must be done, seeing that the wind is hauling.  Hard up, boy, and run her under the stern of the ship at anchor.  Hold! keep your luff again; eat into the wind to the bone, boy; lift again; let the light sails lift.  The slaver has run a warp directly across our track.  If there’s law in the Plantations, I’ll have her Captain before the Courts for this!”

“What means the fellow?” demanded Wilder, jumping hastily on a gun, in order to get a better view.

His mate pointed to the lee-quarter of the other vessel, where, sure enough, a large rope was seen whipping the water, as though in the very process of being extended.  The truth instantly flashed on the mind of our young mariner.  The Rover lay secret-moored with a spring, with a view to bring; his guns more readily to bear upon the battery, should his defence become necessary, and he now profited, by the circumstance, in order to prevent the trader from passing to leeward.  The whole arrangement excited a good deal of surprise, and not a few execrations among the officers of the “Caroline;” though none but her Commander had the smallest twinkling of the real reason why the kedge had thus been laid, and why a warp was so awkwardly stretched across their path.  Of the whole number, the pilot alone saw cause to rejoice in the circumstance.  He had, in fact, got the ship in such a situation, as to render it nearly as difficult to proceed in one way as in the other; and he was now furnished with a sufficient justification, should any accident occur, in the course of the exceedingly critical manoeuvre, from whose execution there was now no retreat.

“This is an extraordinary liberty to take in the mouth of a harbour,” muttered Wilder, when his eyes put him in possession of the fact just related.  “You must shove her by to windward, pilot; there is no remedy.”

“I wash my hands of the consequences, as I call all on board to witness,” returned the other, with the air of a deeply offended man, though secretly glad of the appearance of being driven to the very measure he was a minute before so obstinately bent on executing, “Law must be called in here, if sticks are snapped, or rigging parted.  Luff to a hair, boy; luff her short into the wind, and try a half-board.”

The man at the helm obeyed the order.  Releasing his hold of its spokes, the wheel made a quick evolution; and the ship, feeling a fresh impulse of the wind, turned her head heavily towards the quarter whence it came, the canvas fluttering with a noise like that produced by a flock of water-fowl just taking wing.  But, met by the helm again, she soon fell off as before, powerless from having lost her way, and settling bodily down toward the fancied slaver, impelled by the air, which seemed, however, to have lost much of its force, at the critical instant it was most needed.