The stranger was under all plain sail, to topgallantsails, and was slipping through the water like a witch; but I had very little fear of her outsailing the _Eros_, for, fast as that ship had been when she first fell into our hands, the skipper had improved her speed on a wind nearly a knot, merely by a careful readjustment of the ballast; and now she fully justified my faith in her by handsomely holding her own, and perhaps rather more, but this I could scarcely judge, for since we remained hove-to, the others rapidly drew away from us.