The topmen streamed up the rigging and along the yards, sliding out the pole-like booms which they normally had to lift up while they were working on the sails. These booms, now poking out like fishing rods, seemed too flimsy for the job they had to do.

"Haul taut the tacks, and belay!"

Ramage stopped listening to Aitken's sequence of orders as he tried to guess the Furet's destination. For the moment she was obviously intent on escaping, but where would she have gone with the other two frigates and the two bombs, had everything gone the way the French planned? To Crete, of course, but where after that?

What was the Furet's captain intending to do? If he managed to stay ahead of the Calypso until nightfall, he would need to have a lead of a couple of miles or more to stand a chance of dodging in the darkness - unless there was thick cloud. But a clear night with stars meant the Furet's sails would be easily seen by the Calypso's lookouts. Supposing he did escape completely though - which obviously he was trying to do, escape without fighting - where would he go? The next couple of hours might show - by then he would be clear of any possible wind shadow from Argentario, and the Furet would either turn to the west-south-west if he intended going back to Toulon, planning to pass through the Strait of Bonifacio between Corsica and Sardinia, or carry on to the south if he intended rounding Sicily and turning eastward towards Crete. Of course, he might make a bolt for Civita Vecchia, now only a few miles to the south along the Italian mainland, hoping to find safety there, but a wily fox never bolted for its lair when the hounds were in really close pursuit . . .

By now the stunsails were set and trimmed, and as the Calypso seemed almost to surge along Southwick said: "The wind's freshening, sir. A cast of the log?"

Ramage shook his head. "It won't make us go any faster. Our only concern is catching up with that blasted frigate - and the angle shown on your quadrant will tell us more exactly than the log."

"Well, we gained a little when you set the courses, but lost it when the Furet set her stunsails - she had them up and trimmed before we did. Now we might be gaining a little, I'm waiting a few minutes for our halyards to settle, and Mr Aitken's busy with the sheets and braces: a foot here and a foot there makes a difference ..."

The Italian mainland, now flattening in the great plain and marsh that led to Rome, was sliding past as though the Calypso was a bird flying south to a warmer climate. The Torre di Buranaccio, where he had first met Gianna, had already dropped below the horizon on the larboard quarter; soon he would be able to see the hill towns of Montalto di Castro and then Tarquinia, standing behind their walls beside the via Aurelia like massive sentries from the days of the Caesars guarding the long road to Rome.

Ramage started as Southwick gave a cross between a bark and a chuckle as he put down his quadrant.

"We've gained a little . . . perhaps a quarter of a ship's length."

"We're not exactly ready to range alongside and board her in the smoke," Ramage said irritably. "The wind hasn't freshened; it's easing if anything."

"Aye, sir," Southwick agreed soberly. "We both have the same sail set, but if that French captain doesn't want to turn and fight, it could take us a couple of days to catch him."

"Obviously he doesn't want to fight," Ramage snapped. "Can't say I blame him: he just saw one of his squadron blow up almost alongside him, and the second ship is probably wrecked."

"But we're still even, sir, ship against ship," Southwick pointed out reasonably.

"Ship against ship," Ramage said sarcastically, "doesn't mean very much unless they're in range of each other."

Southwick knew his captain's temper was getting short because of the frustration of having the Furet out of reach and range ahead of him. He was not a man with enough patience to sail in another ship's wake for very long.

"We need something to surprise him," Southwick said complacently, being himself quite prepared to take a couple of days, gaining inch by inch, providing he could eventually get alongside, or at least within range. "He must have had a surprise when that mortar shell burst in his wake! Still, we need something else."

"Yes, we need Martin sitting on the end of the jibboom playing tunes with his flute," Ramage snarled. "A male siren on the rocks. Or perhaps you'd like to go and make nasty faces at him?"

"Wind might drop, sir," Southwick said. "He might run into a calm patch while we still have a breeze - that'd gain us a few ship's lengths."

"And it might just as easily work the other way, with the wind dropping from astern, so we lose it first and he gains the distance."

"True, sir, very true," Southwick said hastily, recognizing warning symptoms. First the Captain would rub the upper and older of the two scars on his right eyebrow vigorously; then the skin of his nose would seem to get taut and bloodless, as though it was shrinking; then he would have trouble pronouncing the letter "r", turning it into a "w". After this, Southwick knew well, although he had seen it happen only a few times, and usually in frustrating circumstances like these, God help the poor fellow who fell across the Captain's hawse. It was likely to be himself this time, he realized, and wished Aitken would come aft: the more live bait the better . . .

Ramage picked up his telescope and spent the next three or four minutes examining the Furet. Southwick measured the angle of the mizenmast once again and noted the angle and the time on the slate. The small island of Giannutri was fading away on the starboard quarter and already Argentario was beginning to shrink over the horizon astern as though shrivelling in the heat of the sun.

Finally Ramage put down the telescope and walked right aft to the stern-chase ports. Southwick was startled to see him kneeling down and, hands gripping the sides of the port, hang out, staring down at the Calypso's wake. He stayed there for several minutes, hauled himself back in again, picked up his hat, which he had left to one side of the port, and jammed it on his head.

"I want five hundred shot brought up on deck from the shot locker," he told Southwick abruptly. "See to it immediately."

The master promptly passed the order to the bosun's mates, and at once dozens of men left the guns and streamed below.

It might work, Ramage thought. He could, of course, start twenty or thirty tons of water from the casks and pump it over the side, so that the ship, lightened by that much weight, might be able to gain a few yards. If he still lost the race, however, he would run out of water weeks before the period his orders lasted, and he would have to go back to Gibraltar with his tail between his legs, defeated by thirst, not the enemy. He could equally well hoist a few guns over the side - each of the 12-pounders weighed a ton - but for every ton he gained he was weakened by a gun, and it still might not do the trick if the Frenchman copied him. There were dozens of other ways of lightening a ship; the trouble was that every one of them also weakened her fighting ability.

Now the men were coming up from below, each clutching four or five 12-pounder roundshot in their arms.

"It might work," Southwick admitted. "It did for the bomb ketches on the way down to Argentario. But - forgive me asking, sir," he added warily, "what makes you think we're not properly trimmed now?"

The question was a fair one because the ship's trim was the master's responsibility and as provisions and water were consumed he had to make sure that the casks, sacks and barrels were taken from parts of the ship that ensured she remained floating level, to the marks set down by her designer.

"We may well be properly trimmed," Ramage said, "but from the day we captured the ship we've never had anything official to go on, only the references in the French logs noting her draught forward and aft whenever the French master could be bothered to have a look and note it down."