thirst.  Yawl’s answer was unfavorable.  The nearest port of the coast as to distance was the farthest as to time.  To reach it, the wind being north by west, we should have to make long fetches and frequent tacks, whereas Callao, or the coast thereabout, could be reached by sailing due north.  So there seemed nothing for it but to economize our resources to the utmost and make all the speed we could.  Yet, do as we might, it was evident that, unless we could obtain a supply of food and water from some passing ship we should have to put ourselves on a starvation allowance.  I was, however, much less concerned for myself and the others, than for Angela.  Accustomed as she had been to a gentle, uneventful, happy life, the catastrophe of Quipai, the anxieties we had lately endured, and the confinement of the sloop, were telling visibly on her health.  Moreover, Kidd’s death, richly as he deserved his fate, had been a great shock to her.  She strove to be cheerful, and displayed splendid courage, yet the increasing pallor of her cheeks and the sadness in her eyes, showed how much she suffered.  We men stinted ourselves of water that she might have enough, but seeing this she declined to take more than her share, often refusing to drink when she was tormented with thirst.

And then there befell an accident which well-nigh proved fatal to us all.  A gust of wind blew the mainsail (made of grass-cloth) into ribbons, the consequence being that our rate of sailing was reduced to two knots an hour, and our hope of reaching Callao to zero.

Meanwhile, Angela grew weaker and weaker, she fell into a low fever, was at times even delirious, and I began to fear that, unless help speedily came, a calamity was imminent, which for me personally would be worse than the quenching of Quipai.  And when we were at the last extremity, mad with thirst and feeble with fasting, help did come.  One morning at daylight Yawl sighted a sail—­a large vessel a few miles astern of us, but a point or two more to the west, and on the same tack as ourselves.  We altered the sloop’s course at once so as to bring her across the stranger’s bows, for having neither ensign to reverse, nor gun wherewith to fire a signal of distress, it was a matter of life and death for us to get within hailing-distance.

“What is she!  Can you make her out?” I asked Yawl, as trembling with excitement, we looked longingly at the noble ship in which centered our hopes.

“Three masts!  A merchantman?  No, I’m blest if I don’t think she’s a man-of-war.  So she is, a frigate and a firm ’un—­forty or fifty guns, I should say.”

“Under what flag?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute—­Union Jack!  No, stars and stripes.  She belongs to Uncle Sam, she do, sir, and he’s no call to be ashamed of her; she’s a perfect beauty and well handled.  By—­I do believe they see us.  They are shortening sail.  We shall be alongside in a few minutes.”

“Who are you and what do you want?” asked a voice from the frigate, so soon as we were within hail.