Christy could not understand why the officer who used so many expletives should be dissatisfied, for the Tallahatchie could certainly make better time when no longer encumbered by the towing of the West Wind. But it must look to him just as though the schooner would be captured by the steamer to the westward, which had been uselessly firing at the blockade-runners in the densest of the fog. He could not help seeing that the vessel in tow had set her sails, and therefore the casting off of the wire rope could not have been caused by an accident.