The razee marched onward with a stately
advance amid the fleet of lesser craft, which,
one after another, fell into her wake. She
was clad in canvass from deck to truck, and
towered into the skies above the humble sails
around like a huge tower of snow piled terrace
on terrace. At the same distance ahead
of her as at first starting, the strange schooner
kept her course. The fast sailing frigate
had passed every thing else, but did not gain
upon this vessel, which was now plainly
seen from the deck of the former, the coasting
vessels which had intercepted the view
having been one after another left astern.

Two bells in the first watch had just been
struck. The frigate was about two miles below
the castle and five from the town, and the
Spanish bazel a little less than half a mile
right ahead. The wind was from the South,
and both vessels were running with it free
on the larboard quarter. The decks of the
frigate shone brightly in the moonlight, save
where the black shadow of the sails would
fall across it, and the brightest spaces were
crossed and netted with the gold pencil-like
shadows of the rigging intercepting the moon
beams. The usual watch was increased by
large numbers of the crew grouped on gun
carriages and the forecastle, and crowding the
forward hammock nettings, watching the advance
of the noble vessel into harbour; for
she had been long absent and in the return
to port the rigid discipline of other time was
in some degree relaxed. Many a weather
beaten face was turned eagerly and earnestly
in the direction of the dome-crowned queen
of New England, sending up her hundred
glittering spires like fingers heaven-pointed.
A cheerful yet suppressed murmur and laughter
broke the usual gravity of the forward
part of the ship, while aft the officers were
no less elated with the prospect of a speedy
termination to their voyage, the anticipation
of a happy meeting with friends, and the enjoyment
once more of social pleasures. The
middies were in high spirits in the prospect of
liberty and larks, and were as merry as school
boys let out of school for a half holiday.
Smiles and good humor and kindly feeling
characterized all on board from the captain,
arrayed in his shore uniform, to the gigantic
African cook who was shaving his ebony
chin in a bit of broken mirror preparatory to
paying a shore visit to his expectant Phillis.

Gallantly the returning frigate bowled up
the harbour which seemed to open its arms
and then gradually to enclose in the embrace
of its arms the two years wanderer. Nets of
golden oranges, huge branches of bananas,
and festoons of fragrant pine apples, which
were hung in different parts of the frigate,
showed that her last departure was from the
West Indies, and that she was not many days
thence.

A party of young officers off duty were
standing near the larboard gangway, some of
them upon the hammock nettings, watching
the lights in the distant city, and pointing
out to each other familiar places; for the
bright moon revealed every object with remarkable
distinctness.

Opposite this group, on the starboard side
of the deck, a little further aft, stood the captain,
his first lieutenant and the quarter-master—
the latter a respectful step to leeward of
his commanding officer. He managed to listen
and con the ship at the same time. They
were talking about bringing the frigate to
anchor, and the best ground to be chosen for
it after they got up to town. In the mizzen
rigging, just above them, stood a young lieutenant
with the quarter-master's spy glass to
his eyes looking out ahead. His face was
suddenly animated. The goleta was a couple
of points to windward and plainly visible from
the quarter deck. He had been watching
her for some moments, being surprised at her
ability to keep her distance ahead of the frigate
which usually walked by every thing.
The rest on board, save some of the sailors

[figure description] Page 007.[end figure description]

who were also observing the stranger keep
ahead with no little surprise, seemed too
much taken up with the familiar shores, the
city and the idea of going on shore to notice
her. To this young officer she seemed to be
only a schooner as her three masts ranged,
and the light was not strong enough at the
distance she was off, for him to distinguish the
lateen rig from the ordinary sails of a schooner.
But while he looked it became necessary
for her to fall off four or five points suddenly
where the channel took a sharp turn, just below
the castle, which she was now most up
with. This change in her course brought her
three quarters to, and to his surprise he saw
that the supposed schooner had three masts
far apart, and that she was remarkably long
in the hull. The change in her position also
brought the beams of the moon more broadly
upon her canvass and he was astonished to
trace the outlines of the sharp triangular lateen
sail.

`Faith! The secret of that long legged fellow's
speed is out,' he said with a rounder
oath than it becomes us to chronicle, or became
the quarter deck of a frigate.

`How? what is it, Winckley?' demanded
the captain, stopping his conversation and
looking at the young officer inquiringly.—
`What have you discovered?'

`A lateen schooner running a race into
Boston harbor with the tightest frigate in
Uncle Sam's navy, and beating her at that. I
never expected to meet with a lateen out of
sight of the Pan of Matanzas!'

The officers attention was now drawn to the
vessel; and as the frigate rapidly neared her
after she had taken the angle in the channel
and running for awhile nearly broadside to,
they easily made her out to be a large class
Spanish baxel.

`This is a strange craft to see in a Yankee
port,' observed the captain. `I suppose she
has taken a run with a cargo of oranges and
pine apples. We are but nine days from Havana
and if she had as quick a passage it will
turn out a good venture!' Thus saying the
captain, after glancing up the harbor, turned
to his lieutenant and resumed his conversations
and instructions.

The frigate now gallantly passed the Castle,
which then presented to the eve snow-white
walls and green parapets, and for the
rest of the way all on board were too busy
to heed the goleta, though her class had been
discovered by other groups both amidship and
on the forecastle, and given rise to no little
curiosity as to her business in those seas.

The goleta was at length lost amid the numerous
vessels at anchor in the broad basin of
the harbor, and soon after the frigate drew in
among them and taking in sail after sail, at
length dropped her anchor in the stream opposite
the India pier.

The deep mouthed bells in the city towers
were ringing out the good old fashioned hour
of nine o'clock—a sort of social curfew for
regulating the hours of all well disposed citizens,
when the frigate came to with her anchor
once more grasping the ground to whih its iron
flukes had so long been a stranger. The sails
were furled, the yards squared, the port watch
set, the captain and one or two of his officers
had gone ashore, as well as all who had got
leave, and ten o'clock struck from half a dozen
turrets, iron tongue answering to tongue from
one extent of the reposing city to another.—
The lieutenant of the watch was pacing up
and down the deck; three or four of the older
midshipmen were standing aft upon the quarter
deck, gazing towards the town and conversing
in animated voices about the joys of
tomorrow. Groups of tars were forward listening
to long yarns to beguile the time, or
leaning over the hammock netting, watching
the moving lights ashore and listening to the
sounds that came off to their ears. All were
impatient for the morning; every bosom
throbbed with joyful anticipation. There was,
however, one exception to the general happiness
which pervaded the frigate. But in the
satisfaction that made each heart full there
was no room to cast a thought upon the
wretchedness of others.'

The lieutenant of the watch had been pacing
up and down the lofty deck with a short
quick impatient step like a man to whom time
lags and who would haster its flight by the rapidity
of its own motion. He was suddenly
stopped by hearing his name called by a midshipman,
who was standing upon the quarter
davits, upon which he had sprung a moment
or two before.

`Roswell! Look here!'

`What is it, Dalton?'

`Come here and see for yourself!'

The office approached him and stepping
upon a gun carriage, looked over the

[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]

bulwarks in the direction whither the young
man's eyes were turned.

`I see nothing but some scores of small craft
anchored about us!' answered he. `You are
always discovering sea-serpents, Dalton,' he
added with a smile.

`There are plenty of craft at anchor and
one that is not at anchor. That one I called
you to look at. I have been watching her the
last five minutes! She is now hid by that
brig. Watch the brig's bows closely and you
will see the craft I mean, poke her sharp nose
out beyond it in a moment! There! Now
do you see her?' he demanded with animation.

`Yes; I see a vessel moving beyond the
brig?'

`And do you see nothing extraordinary in
that, nor in her? Do you not see now that
she shows half her length that she is the goleta?
'

`What goleta?'

`The three masted schooner that run into
harbor ahead of us, and keeping just her diso
tance to a fathom, and not two thirds of her
canvass set!'

`I was below writing a letter for home, you
know, when we came into port. I did not see
her! But sure enough, Dalton, that is a regular
West Indian caravel! a three masted lateen!
I see her plainly enough now!'

`Well, she came into port at the same time
we did, only showing us her saucy heels. I
lost sight of her, just before we came to anchor,
among the other vessels, for you must
know I am positive I saw that self-same craft
at anchor in Havana, up by the Reglas, the
evening before we sailed!'

`Another of your sea-serpents, Dalton? It
is impossible, though there is no doubt she is
from Cuba. We have made the passage in
nine days from anchor up to anchor down, an
unparalleled passage—and there is no Spaniard
that could sail with us at such odds!'

`I could swear to her!'

`So you swore the Coffee Key was a sea-serpent.
You were positive you saw it lift
its head and lash its tail!'

`No more of that an' thou lovest me?' said
the lively young middy, coloring. `What I
now say is true!'

`Well it is possible. But you have doubtless
mistaken some other goleta for this. Yet
if any craft could sail it should be that! She
is built like a greyhound. How she hugs the
water, and yet how lightly her bows and stern
sit above it. And her masts rake with the most
dare devil look, just as a spirited race-horse
throws back his slender ears! You may be
correct, Dalton! Yet it is odd she should
have been in Havana the night before we
sailed, and to-night be anchored within fifty
fathom of our stern!'

`She is not anchored. Do you not see she
is steadily moving, though very slowly!'

`I now see that she is. I thought it was an
apparent motion, caused by the brig this side
of her dragging her anchor. She surely moves
and yet without any perceptible means!'

`That is what surprises me! Before I called
to you she was astern of the brig. At first I
thought she was at anchor; but I soon discovered
that she was creeping almost impert
ceptibly up against the ebb tide and withouusing
any visible impelling powyr. Her sails
being all furled and on deck I was not a little
surprised!'

`You have reason to be! What can it mean?
See how she has left the brig and is yet moving
steadily and noiselessly on!'

`These Spaniards are always doing things
unlike anybody else. What in the deuce can
he want creeping about among the fleet this
way!'

`Perhaps he wants to change his anchoring
ground!'

`Then why dont he do it with his boat
ahead? And how do you explain this motion?
'

`It puzzles me I must confess. If I was in
a Spanish port or any foreign harbor, I should
tell that chap to keep his distance. Here there
is no danger, He is only manœuvring like
all these Spanish vessels. They do every
thing secret and with a mystery, confound
them! Keep your eye on him, Dalton, and
see if you can make out where his fins are!'

Thus speaking the lieutenant sprung from
the gun to reply to some question put to him
by the purser. The middy continued to watch
the goleta with no little curiosity. Slowly,
yet with a steady onward motion, she opposed
the current which had began to ebb, and each
moment drew nearer and nearer under the
stern of the frigate. At length her motion
ceased when within about pistol shot, and she
became stationary within a few fathoms of the
bows of the Polly Ann, which she had a

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

moment before passed as she lay at anchor. But
her bold commander overcome with the military
achievements of the day had turned in
and was asleep upon his laurels, leaving the
vessel to take care of herself. An anchor
fast hold upon the mud was Captain Eben
Pinkham's harbor watch.

Dalton surveyed the mysterious vessel a
few moments, and satisfied that she did not now
move, and that, so far as he could see, she
had not dropped anchor, he was not a little
confounded. A faintly formed superstisious
feeling gathered about his heart, and bold as
he was, he could not but confess that he experienced
something like fear. He was about
to call to the group of young officers who were
laughing and talking on the opposite side of
the deck looking towards the town, when
Roswell came aft and got upon the gun again.

`Ah, she has dropped her mud-hook, Dalton,
' he said on seeing her nearly in the same
position in which he had last seen her.

`Not she! It is my opinion she is sailing on
the devil's back; and he carries her about
where she chooses. She has ceased to move
and yet has let fall no anchor. The devil has
stopped to take breath!'

This was said half-soberly half-laughingly.

`She can't have grounded, for she must
have ten fathom under her keel. Your devil,
Dalton, must be a long-legged child to touch
the bottom. But jesting aside, this is a very
curious and strange affair. Did you discover
how she worked her way up so far.'

`Not I unless, as I say, she came on Belzebub's
back!'

`If we were lying in Havana, and I should
see such manoeuvering I would send a boat
on board of her! How the deuce she moved
along without any sweeps or sails puzzles me.
Ah, I have it. She must have had a line out
ahead and been drawing herself forward
steadily by that?'

`But where could she have it fastened?'

`That is the difficulty. I am still in the
dark. I will get my glass and take a look
upon her decks!'

`I have not seen a soul moving!'

`I will take survey of her in-board! Here
is the spy-glass! I shall have to go two thirds
of the way up to the top to be able to take a
bird's eye view—her sides are built up and
lean in so?'

`What do you discover?'

`A clean deck—rigging neatly coiled—latteen
yards snugly stowed, and every thing as
fine as a feather. She is a beautiful craft.
Too neat for a Spaniard, yet she looks Spanish
altogether!'

`Do you see any one on board!'

`Not a soul. Yes! I see above the bulwarks
the cap of a man walking on the starboard
side of the deck. Forward in shadow I
think there are half a dozen men lying down;
but it is so dark there and the moonlight glitters
so upon the water—for the goleta lies
right in the moon's wake, that I can't well
make them out! She has two boats, of the
same slender elegant model of herself, amidships!
'

The remarks of the lieutenant of the watch
drew the attention of the remaining officers
upon the quarter deck to the goleta, which
now lay quiet and motionless upon the water,
her dark and beautiful proportions finely releived
against the silvery back ground of the
moonlit wave.

After discussing her strange manoeuvering
and admiring her symmetrical and nautical
finish, one by one as the hours advanced they
sought their hammocks, leaving no one upon
the quarter deck save Roswel and the young
middy Tom Dalton. These two were on
watch; and the goleta having, for the last
hour remained without a movement, they
ceased to think of her and beguiled their
weary watch walk with talking of friends
they hoped soon again to meet, till Dalton
closed his eyes and slept, yet still mechanically
pacing up and down the deck; and as
he slept he dreamed of a sister's embrace, a
mother's love, and the blushing welcome of a
maiden with whom he had exchanged looks of
hair three years before.

`Eight bells,' suddenly reported in the
quick, hilarious tone with which the end of
the four hours watch is usually proclaimed,
aroused him to momentary consciousness;
and without quite waking himself up and
losing the delicious dream, he instinctly
reached his hammock and tumbled into it,
there to have out, undisturbed, his happy
dream.

Roswell at the same time surrendered the
deck to the lieutenant of the next four hours
watch, and forgetting the schooner, or thinking
it not worth while to report her for
observation she was now so quiet, he followed

[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]

Dalton below and was soon fast bound in that
deep sleep which falls upon the sailor after
ending his long night watch.

The movements on board the frigate had
not been unnoticed from the goleta. This
vessel after passing the castle ahead of the
frigate, it will be remembered, was lost to
those who watched her, among the numerous
vessels that filled the harbor. She had, however,
run but a little distance in among the
crafts at anchor, when instead of dropping her
slender lateen yards and coming too, like the
rest, she took it in all but her fore sail, with
which lowered a few feet she with diminished
speed gently kept on her way through the
fleet as if seeking an anchoring ground. All
around her were vessels among whom as she
made her way she attracted no little attention.
The only person to be seen in her was a man
standing upon the bows, who communicated
orders from time to time to the helmsman,
by the motions of his hand. Guided
by these motions the helmsman steered the goleta
on through the midst of the closely anchored
fleet without coming in contact.

At intervals, as they sailed along, the person
upon the bow would cast his eyes in search
of the frigate which was also making her way
under shortening sail towards her present anchorage.
From his manner and the dumb
orders he communicated aft, it was plain that
the movements of the caravel were governed
by those of the frigate, that she was watching
the vessel of war, as the small, quick-moving
king-bird watches the hawk as he hovers over
before settling upon, his cyrie.

At length, as the frigate came to anchor
the foresail of the goleta descended upon her
deck, and a man in a scarlet cap taking a
ight grapnel in his hand cast it from the end,
of the bowsprit far ahead beyond the hawser
of a brig that was anchored just above. The
line was then drawn in board through a round
channel in the bows and the goleta was stationary
without an anchor. The success of
this cast was watched from the windlass by
the man who had been giving the orders from
the bows. When he found that the vessel
was held by the grapnel and slender line attached
to it he sprung from the windless and
went aft. As he moved along the deck the
bulwarks enclosing them were so high that
the top of his head was level with them. The
quarter deck was elevated a step above the
main-deck. Here stood a youth with a spy
glass in his hand surveying the frigate through
a small port level with his eye. Several of
these look-outs were now visible so constructed
beneath the cap of the bulwarks as to be
unnoticed a little distance off: through which
observations might be taken of things without
the observer being seen. The upper portion
of the bulwarks was also so made with
hinges and hasps as to fall down all around
the quarter deck, like the leaf of a table, leaving
them only breast high. Amid-ships were
hammock nettings. Her inner works were
all painted a rich vermillion, and the raised
work around the cabin and binnacle, and the
mouldings upon the capstan were all silvergilt.
A crescent of boarding pikes half encircled
the main-mast: and beneath an upturned
boat amid-ships a practised eye might have
guessed that an eighteen pounder was lurking.
If this was the case it was carefully
concealed. The cleanly decks; the well arranged
running rigging; the neatly furled
sails, triced up against the masts, the slender
arched yards rivalling in length the masts
themselves; the air of nautical precison pervading
every thing were features certainly not
often found in a mere merchantman. Forward
were gathered about a dozen men, light,
active looking fellows, with skins as brown as
hazel-nuts; eyes glittering like the basilisks:
wearing picturesque red caps with tassels;
striped shirts, and scarlet sashes bound about
their waists; men of Castillian features and
tongue. Yet the men were none too many
to sail so large a vessel, and they displayed neither
knife nor pistol in their sashes. The goleta
might be an honest merchantman after all.
But circumstances looked very strongly
against her, to say the least