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 Black Lowther, too, had crowded on all sail and he took in none as the breeze freshened. From truck to rail his ship was a towering mass of canvas. Beside Falcon, who still handled the wheel, now stood Diccon Drews, his second in command, a short, broad, hairy, tattooed ruffian, stripped to the waist, his sash bristling with pistols.

Lachlan, listening to the talk between them, learned something of the fine points of this deadly game—learned, too, what Falcon planned. They could never win back to Charles Town Harbour, he gathered; long before then they would be overhauled. But the game was not hopeless; there were several cards to play.

Lowther's tremendous press of canvas was straining his tall masts and tapering spars. Again and again Diccon Drews, a long glass pressed to his glowering eye, studied the Merry Amy's bellying sails, and any moment he hoped to see a topmast snap. Falcon, knowing Black Lowther's seamanship, dismissed this possibility, but turned his head at intervals to gauge the lessening distance between the two vessels.

Good shooting was impossible in such a sea, but a little later, when the range would be shorter, a lucky shot from the long gun at the Good Fortune's stern might give that slim foretopmast a fatal wound. It was one chance in a hundred; and even then with half a gale blowing the ship would outsail the brig. But the chase would last longer and there might be time to play the last card.