to write a longer letter
when he had more to say. A couple of months or more after the arrival
of Gerald's first letter another was received from him.

"Dear sister Norah," it ran, "I promised to spin you a long yarn, so
here goes, and I hope that you'll get it some day. I told you in my
last that I had seen the _Ouzel Galley_ under way from Montego Bay, and
I suppose Owen has long before this delivered all the messages I sent by
him; and if not, I dare say he will before long, if he hasn't forgotten
them. No matter; they were not very important, so you needn't scold him
for his negligence.

"I forget if I told you that, while our ship was undergoing repairs in
dock at Port Royal, Lieutenant Foley, Molly--I mean Lord Mountstephen--
with Nat Kiddle and me, and about twenty of our hands, were turned over
to the _Augusta_, 60-gun ship, commanded by Captain Forrest; and
immediately afterwards were ordered to proceed to sea, accompanied by
two other ships under his orders, the _Edinburgh_, of sixty-four guns,
Captain Langdon, and the _Dreadnought_, of sixty guns, Captain Morris
Suckling. We soon found that we were to cruise off Cape Francois, on
the north coast of Saint Domingo, to watch a French squadron under
Commodore De Kearsaint, who was collecting a large number of merchantmen
which he was to convoy from that port to Europe. The admiral had been
informed that the French had only three line-of-battle ships, which,
although somewhat larger than we were, he knew very well that we should
thrash if we could come up with them. We gained intelligence, however,
from a French despatch vessel which we captured, that the enemy's
squadron had lately been increased by four other ships, one of which,
by-the-by, was a ship of ours--the _Greenwich_--of fifty guns, captured
a few months ago, when commanded by Captain Roddam, off this very
island. He had nothing to be ashamed of, for with his single ship he
bravely faced five sail of the line and several frigates, and wasn't
taken till he had lost all chance of escaping except by going to the
bottom. Thus, you see, the French had seven ships to our three, and we
heard besides that they had been strongly manned by volunteers from the
garrison and merchant vessels, and made sure that they should either
drive us away or capture us.

"Notwithstanding the superiority of the enemy, we were not to be put to
flight, but kept our ground as if no Frenchmen were in the
neighbourhood. W