leaving our unfortunate "small craft" to follow her at their leisure.

"Confound the boats !" cried Morley, what could tempt me to hoist them out! Steer straight for them, Mr. Neville, and let them be hoisted in again with all dispatch."

"Ay, ay, Sir!" responded the first lieutenant, shaping the course of the vessel as he was directed; and when we had overtaken the boats, and hove to to recover them, we had the satisfaction of seeing the chase walk unforbidden away.

When we were once more ready to make sail on her, the brig had got a long start of us, and from our observations with the sextant she seemed very much inclined to keep it. She crawled away more regularly than she had hitherto done since the commencement of the chase; and as she still continued under the same canvass as before, we were a little at a loss to account for her mended rate; the breeze apparently favouring us both in an equal degree.

They've altered the trim of that craft, Sir," said Black to Morley; "and I'm blessed but I think they have been playing with us all this time.”

"They shall find it odd play," was the captain's only reply, "if this wind hold, and the sticks will stand it!"

Notwithstanding all our exertions, however, she was evidently leaving us rapidly; and if she had altered her trim, as the master maintained, she had certainly done so to some purpose. Morley watched her anxiously for some time; and after repeated observations, being satisfied that she was every moment getting a-head, he at last seemed to give up his chance of success as hopeless.

"Come, Mr. Neville," he said to the acting first lieutenant, "let us go down below, and have a bottle of La Fitte. We are going to be well beat, and I for one don't like to see it. Keep a a bright look-out, youngster," he continued, addressing himself to me," and if we do gain on her let me know."

So saying, he descended with his lieutenant to the cabin; and no sooner was he gone, than the cluster of middies on the forecastle, relieved from the restraint of his presence, began to vent their spleen-cursing and swearing heartily at "the little black brute that

dared to take the shine out of such a dipper as the Hesperus."

66

Strange!" said Strangway, who had been observing the brig carefully with a sextant, and found from each observation that she was increasing the distance between us, "at the commencement of the chase we seemed her superior in sailing, and latterly we have been at least equal to her-but now, the devil's in't if we can hold our own with her!-D-n me if I can understand it !"

"Understand it!" said Black, who piqued himself on his superior nautical skill, and thought it impossible that any manœuvre could be practised of which he had not a most complete comprehension; "understand it, Sir! why it is all owing to her trim! I'll lay my life she has not been idle either above or below for the last hour. Ay, ay, Sir! see what trimming ship does!"

Trimming d-1" replied Strangway, in a peevish tone, haven't we been trimming, too, and what have we made of it? I'll be d-d if it is not all chance, and our own ill luck, blast her!"

Well, well, Sir," said Black, "you must, of course, know more of these matters than I do, though maybe I'm the older sailor of the two, for all that ;" and he raised his glass with an air of self-importance, to his eye, as if to put an end to the altercation.

The indignant master continued to examine the brig, for some time, carefully, through his glass; and a smile of triumph played round his lips when he, at last, lowered the instrument from his eye, and handed it to Strangway.

"I suppose, Sir," said he, in the self-satisfied tone of a man who has unexpectedly found some irrefragable argument to support a favourite position; I suppose, Sir, you'll maintain that she's not trimming Now."

By heaven!" cried Strangway, when he had raised the glass and contemplated the chase for a moment, they are cutting away an anchor from her bows!"

Ay, ay, Sir," said Black, in a tone half of derision, half of triumph, "see what trimming ship does!'

Every glass was now pointed in the direction of the chase, and she was

The sextants were now laid aside in despair, no one being anxious to watch the progress of what was, at last, considered our certain discomfiture. I still, however, kept mine upon the chase. My first observation was, that by cutting away her anchors she had not mended her rate. She did not continue to gain on the Hesperus so rapidly as she had previously done; on the contrary, she rather lost way. After a few minutes had elapsed, this was still more apparent; and the Hesperus began gradually, but decicidedly to gain upon her. Having repeated my observations several times, with great care, in order to satisfy myself that I was not deceived, and still finding that we were making on her, more and more, I jumped out of the netting and ran down to the captain, brandishing the sextant triumphantly in my hand.

"Well, youngster," said Morley, "what's in the wind now ?"

"We are coming up with her, hand over hand, Sir," I cried, in ecstacy. "She has cut both her anchors from her bows, and seems to have spoiled her trim !"

Up started both captain and lieutenant at this unexpected intelligence. and, having first made me swallow a glass of wine "for luck," we all hurried together on deck. As soon as we were above, Morley snatched the sextant from my hand, and, at a single glance, satisfied himself that my statement was correct. We continued gradually to overhaul her; and the breeze re Jained as steady as we could desire. Towards six P. M. we had diminished the distance between us to about a mile.

She, on the contrary, put her helm up again, and kept more away than she had hitherto done; hoisting, at the same time, French colours. On this new point, her starboard lower studding-sails drawing, she, for some time, seemed to hold us a better tug. But it was all in vain; the Hesperus had got the breeze she liked, and would not be denied. The distance between us was still gradually diminishing.

Sunset again approached; but as the chase was now but a short way a-head, we had little fear of her escaping under cover of the darkness. One circumstance was particularly in our favour for a night run. We had a mass of dark clouds behind us; and before her the sky was bright and clear; so that, long after we should be completely hidden from her view, her spars and rigging would be distinctly visible to us, standing out in relief against the horizon. Not reckoning upon this important difference in our situations, when darkness set in, the brig seemed to conclude that he was as much hidden from us as we were from her. Accordingly, by the assistance of our night-glasses, we soon observed her cut away her stern boat; and, placing a lantern in it, let it go adrift. The object of this manœuvre was to lead us astray; for, no sooner was she clear of the boat than she immediately bore up several points, and set her larboard studding sails. But it would not do. We merely ran up to the boat to ascertain if any unfortunate negroes had been turned adrift in her; but, finding it empty, we again followed close on the chase.

It was now towards nine o'clock in the evening, and as we were at the time within little more than half a mile of her, we fired a few muskets at, or rather near her.

"Well, Black," said Morley, "which of us do you think is playing with the other now?"

"It was all owing to her cutting away her anchors, Sir!" replied Black, unwilling to give up the point of the "trimming," on which he had in a manner staked his nautical credit.

"To be sure it was," chuckled Strangway, who chanced to be at the master's elbow unknown to him ;SEE WHAT TRIMMING SHIP DOES!"

The disconcerted master struck his

were getting their hammocks and so forth in readiness. As we neared her, the fetid smell she exhaled was insufferable, and from the crowded appearance of her decks she seemed to have a good cargo. She proved to be a fine raking brig, pierced for fourteen, but carrying only eight carronades. Besides her own complement of twentyfive men, exclusive of officers, she had on board three hundred and forty negroes; and she must have been intended for many trips, as she was provided with ample stores for four years. She was fitted out at Nantz, from which port she had sailed only a few months previously.

We had chased her for upwards of forty hours, during which time we had run nearly two hundred miles, and throughout the whole run we were never more than five miles distant from her, for the most part not much above two. Completely worn out with constant watching during so protracted a period, as soon as the preliminary arrangements were made, I wrapped my cloak about me, and throwing myself on deck, managed, with the assistance of a cigar and some genuine Nantz, to overcome the filthy effluvia with which I was surrounded, and to obtain a little refreshing sleep.

THE morning sun shone cheerily on the boulevards of the good city of Paris, and a few of the populace, hurrying to their daily avocations, gave indication of the incipient bustle and movement of the capital. It could scarcely have been later than seven o'clock when a small troop of horsemen issued through the Porte St. Antoine, and slowly took the road to Vincennes. At the head of the cavalcade rode two individuals, some distance separating them from the rest, who belonged rather to their suite than to their company; and who, with marks of unequivocal respect, regu lated the speed of their impatient steeds by the pace which the leaders had adopted. The personage to whom his companion had ceded the right of the high road, was mounted on a handsome Spanish mule, whose smooth and regular amble seemed the result of careful training, and well accorded with the evidently enfeebled health of the rider. The latter, through the severity of his physical and moral sufferings, might have been pronounced much older than his years; which, in reality, scarcely exceeded forty-nine. Such was his confidence in the meek and well-disciplined animal on which he was mounted, that, from time to time, he abandoned the bridle, and pressed his forehead between both hands, with a convulsive motion which had grown into a confirmed habit. In spite of the cool morning air, and even of a slight mist which extended, like a sheet, over the plain, the invalid had suspended his hat from his saddle-bow, imprudently exposing his bare head to the dewy vapour which hung, in drops, from the few grey curls that shaded his temples. Far from incommoding him, the chilling moisture apparently afforded some relief to the fever of the brain, which, at every instant, forced him to renew the involuntary movement of his hands to his forehead. His costume

was such as befitted the gravity of an elderly nobleman of his time, which, as we should previously have informed the reader, was about the year 1417, the thirty-eighth of the reign of Charles the Sixth, surnamed the Well-Beloved. He wore a sort of black velvet robe, open in front, and trimmed with white ermine, and as its wide sleeves floated loosely in the wind, the divisions at the seams occasionally exposed to view the tight sleeves of a doublet of gold brocade, the faded splendour of which evinced that the garment had rendered some service to the wearer. At the bottom of this long robe, and emancipated from the usual restraint of stirrups, were barely visible the feet of the cavalier, dangling to and fro, in a pair of furred and pointed boots. This somewhat ungraceful freedom of action, by exposing the flanks of the mule to the frequent and periodical visitations of the rider's heels, might have severely tried the patience of the complaisant beast, but for the foresight of some cautious attendant, who had disarmed the aforesaid boots of the sharp and gilded spurs which, at that epoch, formed a distinctive appendage to the high-born Seigneur's costume. As our description, were it prolonged even to the tediousness of a thrice-told tale, would scarcely convey an accurate idea of the rank of the personage to whom it refers, we shall briefly add that the illustrious cavalier was no other than the sovereign himself, Charles the Sixth of France. Having been seized with insanity during a journey to Brittany, in 1392, the monarch remained, from that period, unvisited by the light of reason, save at intervals "few, and far between ;" and which became still fewer, and still more distant from each other, as the hand of time pressed more heavily on the royal maniac's head. Benighted as were the faculties of Charles, his consort, Isabelle, long exercised a power

ful ascendancy over his affections. The queen's ordinary residence was at Vincennes, where, as on the present occasion, she was frequently visited by the king, attended by an inconsiderable suite; his majesty having, of late years, evinced much distaste for courtly pomp and etiquette.

On the left hand of Charles, and nearly on a line with him rode a cavalier of colossal stature, armed from head to foot, and with some difficulty repressing the ardour of his mettlesome war-horse. His armour was rather serviceable than elegant; nevertheless the superiority of its workmanship was attested by the perfect ease and freedom which its various joinings allowed to the movements of the warrior's limbs. From his saddlebow, on one side was suspended a mace of terrific weight, which had once been richly damasked in gold, but which, doubtless from its frequent contact with hostile casques, had lost much of its ornament, though nothing of its solidity. On the left side of the saddle-bow, and by way of pendant to the mace, hung a weapon equally formidable-a sword, the blade of which, broad at the top, gradually diminished to a point, like that of a stiletto, and on the scabbard of which an abundauce of fleurs-de-lis, designated the owner as the Count d'Armagnac, constable of France, governor-general of the city of Paris, and commandant of all the fortresses in the kingdom. Both of these respectable weapons were for the moment paraded, rather through precaution than necessity: their master indeed seemed to regard them as tried and trusty servants, and accordingly exacted their presence night and day. The physiognomy of the herculean soldier, appeared sombre in the extreme; perchance his vizor, which shaded his dark eyes, lent additional harshness to his features. His aquiline nose, his complexion bronzed by the wars of Milan, and above all, a deep scar which cleft, as it were, his cheek in twain, extending from his arched and bushy eyebrow, to his grisly beard ;-in a word, his whole personal appearance denoted that his soul was not less impenetrable or unbending, than the iron envelope within which it was incased.

The two cavaliers of whom we have thus attempted a faithful portraiture,

had hitherto pursued their ride in silence from the gate of the Bastille, to the junction of the two roads, one of which led to the convent of Saint Anthony, the other to Vincennes. All at once the king's mule abandoned, as we have already intimated, to self-discretion, stopped short in the midst of the highway. Charles had been wont to turn the animal's head, sometimes towards Vincennes, whither he was that day bound, and sometimes towards the convent of Saint Anthony, where his majesty frequently performed his devotions: accordingly the docile creature stood motionless, in expectation of the customary gesture or indication on the part of the rider. The king, however, who was in one of those moods of abstraction, which rendered him wholly insensible to surrounding objects, remained stationary on the spot where his mule had judged it advisable to halt, and seemed even unaware of his sudden change from a state of motion, to one of absolute quietude and repose. Hoping to recall his majesty's self-possession, the Count d'Armagnac addressed him, but in vain. He next spurred his steed in front of the mule, expecting that a spirit of companionship would induce the latter to follow. In this speculation the constable deceived himself. The phlegmatic beast merely raised his head, gazed vacantly at the prancing courser, shook the jingling bells attached to his neck, and remained immoveable as before. Losing all patience at this obstinacy, d'Armagnac hastily dismounted, at the same time making a signal to his body esquire, who drew near and took charge of his steed. The count then, perceiving that to seize the bridle of the mule, was the sole expedient that could release him from his embarrassment, advanced on foot towards the king for that purpose; for such was the awe inspired by the very name of royalty, that none of what rank soever would in less respectful plight, have dared to lay a finger on any portion of the trappings appertaining to the animal which the afflicted monarch bestrode. The laudable purpose of the constable D'Armagnac was in this instance signally defeated; for as soon as Charles was aware that another hand than his own had touched his bridle-rein, he ut