And weigh we did, a little after seven o'clock that evening, securing a good offing, and clearing the shoals of Saint Ann by daybreak the next morning.  We knew that it was customary for the slavers coming out of the Gulf of Guinea to endeavour to sight Cape Palmas, in order that they might obtain a good "departure" for the run across the Atlantic, also because they might usually reckon upon picking up the Trades somewhere in that neighbourhood.  The skipper therefore carefully laid down upon his chart the supposititious course of the _Virginia_ from the Gaboon to Cape Palmas, and thence onward to the Caribbean Sea; and then shaped a course to enable us to fall in with her on the latter, at a spot about one hundred miles to the westward of Palmas.  Having reached this spot, we shortened sail to our three topsails, spanker, and jib, and slowly worked to windward along that course, tacking every two hours until we had worked up to within sight of the cape, and then bearing up and running off to leeward for a distance of one hundred miles again, keeping a hand aloft on the main-royal yard as look-out from dawn to dark.  It was weary, anxious work; for of course our movements were being regulated by a theory that, for aught we knew to the contrary, might be all wrong; and as day succeeded day without bringing the expected sail within our ken there were not wanting among us those who denounced the skipper's plan as foolish, and argued that the proper thing would have been to go direct to the Gaboon, and look there for the _Virginia_.  But Captain Perry, having carefully thought the whole thing out, stuck to his guns, refusing to budge an inch from his original arrangement, in response to the hints and insinuations of those who disagreed with him.  And the result proved the soundness of his theory, for on the sixteenth day of our quest, about seven bells in the afternoon watch, the look-out hailed the deck with: