The breeze, meanwhile, continued steadily to freshen, and when at length it reached the two strange sail ahead of us we were buzzing along, with a long, easy, rolling motion over the low swell, at a speed of fully nine knots, with a school of porpoises gambolling under our bows--each of them apparently out-vying the others in the attempt to see which of them could shoot closest athwart our cut-water without being touched by it--and shoal after shoal of flying-fish sparking out from the bow surge and streaming away to port and starboard like so many handfuls of bright new silver coins flung hither and thither by Father Neptune.
