My Shipmate Louise, Volume III

For a couple of days nothing that need find a place in this narrative happened. On the afternoon of the third day of our being aboard the barque we sighted a sail, hull down, to windward. I climbed into the main-top and examined her through the glass, and found her a brig, very loftily rigged, her canvas soaring into moonsails, a sight I had never before witnessed at sea, even in those days when ships went more heavily draped than they do in these. She was heading our course, perhaps making a slightly more weatherly navigation, and full blown as she looked to be-a large, soft cloud of canvas in the lenses of the telescope-we passed her at the rate of two feet to her one; and some time before sunset we had sunk her to her royals on the quarter.

Miss Temple wanted me to ask Captain Braine to run the _Lady Blanche_ into speaking distance of the brig, that we might ascertain where she was bound to and get on board of her. ‘For she may be sailing,' she said, ‘to some South American port that will be, comparatively speaking, close at hand, where we shall be easily able to find a ship to convey us home. ' But after thinking a little, I decided to keep quiet. It would not sound very graciously to request Captain Braine to tranship us into an outward-bound vessel: nor would it be wise to put him to the trouble of deviating from his course merely, perhaps, to ascertain that the brig was bound round the Horn to parts more distant than the Mauritius. Besides, I had no wish to court a blunt refusal from Captain Braine to put his vessel within hailing distance of another until a real opportunity to get to England should present itself by some homeward-bound ship passing close; when, of course, I should take my chance of his assent or refusal. So I suffered the brig to veer away out of sight without speaking to the captain about her, or even appearing to again heed her after I had come down from aloft.