noon
was the cry on board of us , and , in a very short time , the water was talking Spanish under our bows . Every stitch of sail was packed on the ship : but the stranger stood right away before the light breeze , and crawled away from us fast , for that was our worst sailing point . We kept a-blazing away with our bow guns , to bring her to ; but the more we fired , the more she would n't stop ; and we might just as well have fired at the moon , for all the mischief we could do her . At daylight , she was hull down ahead ; but the breeze freshened with the rising sun , and we began to fetch up our starnway , and , before noon , we began to drop our shot into her . She was n't slow in answering at first from her stern guns , which were uncommon well sarved , and every now and then walked a ball through our sails , but luckily did not strike our masts . We were overhauling her in great style , peppering away as fast as we could , when all at once she began to yaw about , and , giving a broad sheer away to port , she shortened sail , and then came to the wind again on the starboard tack , with her maintopsail to the mast , and doused a red rag she had a-flying at the main . We gave over firing , and soon bowled up alongside of her , rolled up the small sail , hauled up the foresail , and backed the main-yard .