Toward midnight the fickle breeze awoke and wafted the ships along under studding sails and all the light cloths that were wont to arch skyward.

For two hours the men slept on deck like logs while those on watch grunted at the pump-brakes and the hose wetted the canvas to make it draw better.
The breeze failed, however, and through the rest of the night it was kedge and tow again, the _Shannon_ and the _Guerriere_ hanging on doggedly, confident of taking their quarry.

Another day dawned, hot and windless, and the situation was unchanged.

Other British ships had crawled or drifted nearer, but the _Constitution_ was always just beyond range of their heavy guns.

We may imagine Isaac Hull striding across the poop and back again, ruddy, solid, composed, wearing a cocked hat and a gold-laced coat, lifting an eye aloft, or squinting through his brass telescope, while he damned the enemy in the hearty language of the sea.
He was a nephew of General William Hull, but it would have been unfair to remind him of it.
Near sunset of the second day of this unique test of seamanship and endurance, a rain squall swept toward the _Constitution_ and obscured the ocean.