Quickly came his orders, clear and sharp; everything had been gone over before, but everything was gone over again.

The corvette was to bear down upon the pirate, her cannon--great guns for those days, and which could soon have disabled, if they had not sunk, the smaller vessel--were muzzled and told to hold their peace.

The man-of-war was to bear down upon the pirate and to capture her by boarding.

There was to be no broadside, no timber-splitting cannon balls.
The wind was light and in favour of the corvette, and slowly the two vessels diminished the few miles between them; but there was enough wind to show the royal colours on the Badger.
"He is a bold fellow, that pirate," said some of the naval men, "and he will wait and fight us." "He will wait and fight us," said some of the others, "because he cannot get away; in this wind he is at our mercy." Captain Vince stood and gazed over the water, sometimes with his glass and sometimes without it.

Here now was the end of his fuming, his raging, his long and untiring search.