make of her, Mr Grimmond?'
'No cat, sir, I agree,' said Grimmond, after a long searching pause. 'I can see her topgallantyards as plain as plain. I should not like to take my oath on it, but she looks rather like the Minnie, a Dane out of Aarhus. We saw her often last year, and chased her twice. She has a fine turn of speed on a bowline, and she lies very close indeed.'
'Let us go up to the masthead, Mr Grimmond,' said Jack, calling to the lookout to slide down the stay. There was barely room at the main crosstrees of so small a ship as the Ariel for a sixteen-stone post-captain and a stoutly-built master, and the frail spars creaked ominously. Grimmond was horribly embarrassed as well as frightened: ordinarily two such figures would have clung close together, but he could not bring himself to such familiarity with the person of Captain Aubrey, and he was obliged to adopt an odd, crucified posture between a shroud and a backstay.
The first thing that Jack did was to search for his quarry, the cat heading for Riga. At this height he commanded a disk of sea twenty-five miles in diameter: there was no cat in it. Nor should there have been any cat. By all his calculations she should still be over the south-eastern horizon, crawling towards a point in the sea where the Ariel should cut her course at about the beginning of the forenoon watch.
'Yes, sir,' said the master. 'I am almost sure she is the Minnie now. Her topsides are all black, and she carries a boat on stern-davits.'
'And what may she be?'
'Why, sir, sometimes she is a trader, sailing under our licence or dealing with the French on her own account, and sometimes she is most likely a privateer: maybe both together, when the opportunity offers. She certainly had no licence when she ran from us, beating into Danzig.'
'She is fast, you say?'
'Very fast on a wind, sir; but going large the Ariel has the legs of her. We should have caught her the second time, but that she ducked in under the guns of Bornholm. We were coming up hand over fist.'
'What does she carry?'
'Fourteen Danish six-pounders, sir.'
A considerable armament for a merchantman, but even so no match for the Ariel. Jack considered, hanging there between the clear sky and the deck. The cat was hypothetical: likely, but still hypothetical. She was desperately slow, and sailing or towing her down the Baltic would eat up a great deal of time. The Minnie was no sort of a hypothesis: she was there, plainly to be seen; she was fast, she was heading in the right direction - a chase would take him on his way - and she was under his lee.
'Very well, Mr Grimmond,' he said, 'we will see if we can catch her this time,' and reaching out for a backstay he slid down on deck in one long smooth sweep.
Apart from the very beginning, when he was fairly sure he could rely on the Minnie's lookout to ignore the Ariel for a while in the usual merchantman fashion and then upon a demi-privateer's curiosity and eagerness for prey, he knew that there would be little room for guile in this pursuit. It would be a straightforward race, a match of speed, perhaps of seamanship; and there was all day to run it in, a fair wind, and an open sea. He bitterly regretted his topgallantmasts, struck down on deck during yesterday's hard blow and never swayed up since - he had meant to leave it until both watches should be on deck.
There would be no room for guile in the long run, but still it would be foolish not to take whatever advantage there was to be gained; they were nearly five miles apart, scarcely hull-up from the deck, and it would take a long while to make up that distance, particularly as the Minnie already had her topgallantyards crossed and the Ariel was rather deep-laden. He sent her slanting casually across the sea to cross the Minnie's wake, still under topsails, suspended the ritual of washing the deck, stated that hammocks would not be piped up until further notice, ordered hammock-cloths to be draped over the gunports, and topgallantmasts and yards laid along, ready to be swayed up and crossed at a moment's notice, with royals to follow them, and desired the officers to follow his example in changing their fine blue coats for pea-jackets. He had gone to sea with only one uniform, his best; and the Ariel's gunroom, supposing this to be his own choice, his normal standard of dress, had hitherto presented an appearance that would have done credit to a flagship, with blazing buttons, epaulettes, and eminent hats, visible a great way off - certain marks of a King's ship. He also sent most of the hands below, keeping only about a dozen in view.
The Minnie sighted them earlier than Jack had expected. From the maintop he saw her people running about, a surprisingly heavy crew and an almost conclusive proof of her being a privateer - quite enough men to serve her seven guns of a side, or to board and carry any ordinary Baltic merchantman. She rounded-to for a closer look, and Jack called 'Danish colours, Mr Grimmond.'
The Minnie seemed pleased, and answered with the same, coming a little nearer.
'Steer to close her, Mr Grimmond,' said Jack in the waiting silence: but even as he spoke the Minnie smelt a rat, turned on her heel, dropped her topgallantsails and fled south-east.
Before the Ariel had loosed hers the chase already had her royals abroad, and the distance was growing rapidly. The delay irked Jack extremely - he could blame nobody but himself, and he urged the royal masts and yards aloft with a grim urgency that filled all hands with concern.
Yet in time masts, yards and a spider's web of stays were where they should be; all sail the ship could bear was set and drawing drum-tight; all falls were coiled down and cleared away; and the Ariel, under her own colours and with her pennant streaming forward high over all, bore away in the Minnie's wake, gradually reaching the utmost speed that the fair breeze on her starboard quarter would allow. It was too soon to tell which was the happier on this point of sailing, but Jack was reasonably certain that he should overhaul the chase before the end of the day: there were few faster sloops in the service than Ariel, and he knew her pretty well by now.
'Very well, Mr Hyde,' he said, 'I believe we may remove the hammock-cloths and carry on with cleaning the decks.' The interrupted ship's day resumed its natural course: sand and holystone scoured the worn white wood, hammocks were piped up and stowed, the galley chimney started to smoke, hands were piped to breakfast; and all this time the two ships raced over the morning sea.
When Stephen came on deck, eager for his coffee, surprised and somewhat aggrieved at not even having smelt it yet, he was led by a gentle midshipman to the bows, where the Captain and the master were training their sextants on the chase.
'Good morning to you, Doctor,' said Jack. 'I hope you slept well?'
'Admirably well, I thank you; and am as a giant refreshed. My eyes are keen, my appetite and all my senses
