The next day, in spite of the sail she carried, the _Sea-horse__ lagged
behind, and one of the frigates sailed back to her, and the captain
shouted angry orders to the master to keep his place in the convoy.

"If we get any wind," O'Grady said, as the frigate bore up on her course
again, "it will take all your time to keep up with her, my fine fellow.
You see," he explained to Terence, "no vessel is perfect in all points;
some like a good deal of wind, some are best in a calm. Now this ship
wants wind."

"I think she does, Captain O'Grady," Terence replied, gravely. "At any
rate her strong point is not sailing in a light wind."

"No," O'Grady admitted, regretfully; "but it is not the ship's fault. I
have no doubt at all that her bottom is foul, and that she has a lot of
barnacles and weeds twice as long as your body. That is the reason why she
is a little sluggish."

"That may be it," Terence agreed; "but I should have thought that they
would have seen to that before they sent her to Cork."

"It is like enough that her owners are well-wishers of Napoleon, Terence,
and that it is out of spite that they have done it. There is no doubt that
she is a wonderful craft."

"I am quite inclined to agree with you, Captain O'Grady, for as I have
never seen a ship except when the regiment came back from India ten years
ago, I am no judge of one."