The tremendous speed of the Bellevite had been telling with prodigious effect upon the distance between the two steamers, which was now reduced to not more than a mile and a half. Captain Rombold could not help realizing by this time that the American-built vessel outsailed the English-built. If the Trafalgar was good for twenty knots an hour, as represented, she had hardly attained that speed, as Captain Breaker judged by comparison with that of his own ship.